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February 20, 2012
And what, you might ask, is this North Korea problem? It means different things to different people, but in my case it is that I am totally fascinated with North Korean food but there are no North Korean restaurants in New York. Lately I have been spending so much time researching the subject that I decided it should have its own spinoff blog, which I proclaim to be the world’s first English-language North Korean food blog. Don’t worry, I will still be posting here with my other favorite foods from all of the countries in the world besides the DPRK. But do check out Juche Vegan, which has already been picked up in NK News.
February 20, 2012
Merry President’s Day, Ducklings! Even though I don’t get paid holidays I still get giddy when I have a three-day weekend. Many people in the Northeast choose to spend the weekend skiing, but I am just hanging out at Duckhouse South with the dogs. Since it’s the middle of winter, it’s a really great time to make a huge batch of kimchi. I’ve made kimchi for my blog last winter, but that involved a lot of chopping vegetables by hand. This time I decided to make it a little easier by whipping up a kimchi base. This is, by the way, not authentically Korean. But it is a popular way of making kimchi in Japan. You can buy a jar of kimchi base (キムチの素）at just about any Japanese supermarket. But it’s not vegan because it has squid extract and bonito flakes. Indeed, most store bought kimchi isn’t vegan because it has fish sauce and/or anchovies in it. To make today’s recipe, I used one of my favorite ingredients ever, Vietnamese vegetarian fish sauce, or Nước Mắm Chay.
But Mother Duck, what if I can’t get vegetarian fish sauce?
Don’t worry, I’ve been there. When I was cooking from my cabin in Maine and couldn’t find it, I used 1 part regular soy sauce, 1 part white vinegar and 1 part water. I would also suggest one part red miso dissolved in two parts hot water, given that the main ingredient in the vegetarian fish sauce is soybeans. The most important thing is to get that umami taste with a sour note. In case you are curious, the ingredients in the Vietnamese version in the picture are: soybean, peanut, fructose, salt, MSG, and “fish sauce flavor.” Yeah, that last one is helpful. Note the MSG though- if you are against MSG then don’t even bother trying to hunt down the bottled version.
Lazy Vegan Kimchi Base
5 tablespoons vegetarian fish sauce
5 tablespoons red pepper powder
1/2 onion, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic
1/2 asian pear, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sweetener (rice syrup or agave nectar)
1 teaspoon ginger powder
2 scallions (green parts)
1. Put all of the fresh ingredients and the fish sauce in the food processor (this is the lazy part). Blend until it forms a smooth paste.
2. Next, add the powders (red pepper salt and ginger) and mix again until smooth.
3. Transfer the mixture to jars (this will yield about two half pint jars) and put them in the fridge until you are ready to make kimchi.
4. When you make kimchi, start by washing the cabbage and rubbing salt between the leaves. Cover in water and let it brine overnight. When it is done brining, rinse off the cabbage and get out your kimchi base.
5. Pour enough base over the cabbage to generously coat the leaves. Transfer the cabbage to an airtight container and let it ferment for 1-3 days at room temperature before storing it in the fridge. It should keep for about three months.
You can also use it to make kimchi with other vegetables. I also used mine for scallions and bok choy. Now I have so much that I could use a kimchi fridge. But they are really expensive. And pretty and flowery and shiny and I totally want one. Even if you are too poor for a kimchi fridge (sigh), it pays to get some really good airtight jars. (See our covergirl).
While you wait for the kimchi to ferment, try making a batch of mayo to go with it. I’m telling you, it’s the two great tastes that taste great together!
Love,
Mother Duck
February 7, 2012
Happy Monday Ducklings! I hope you had fun watching the football contest in which that guy who is married to Gisele lost and she swore at him (see, I keep up on the important stuff). I didn’t watch the Big Game because I was too busy overseeing the showdown between Grass Fed Dog and her nemesis, Grass Fed Puppy. I had wanted a dog family for years but the international moving and cross-country driving sort of got in the way. Now that I finally have a place with a yard and permission to have multiple dogs, I decided I was ready for the Ultimate Puppy Challenge. I got Grass Fed Dog when she was over a year old, so I’ve never actually had a puppy and I kind of felt like I was missing out. It’s a lot of work, but I can already tell that I will be sad when Grass Fed Puppy is no longer a pup and I have to think of a new nickname for him.
Of course, the biggest issue when bringing home a new member of your doggie family is the whole sibling issue. After the White Fang debacle, I wanted to make sure that Grass Fed Dog had a friend who would respect her authoritah and not scare the crap out of her. I knew it had to be a boy, and a small breed, but the deal was sealed when I learned that the breeder who brought me Grass Fed Dog had recently started breeding Brussels Griffons. I had contacted her just before her first litter of pups was born, so I got to pick out Grass Fed Puppy when he was just a tiny thing:
They grow up so fast! Now that he’s here, I have to contend with a very jealous Dog. The first thing she did when I brought Puppy home was eat all of his food. Given her tendency to look like a Butterball turkey, Dog eats only Weight Management kibble. So Puppy’s high-calorie kibble must have been like McDonald’s fries compared to quinoa. Now I can’t get her to eat unless I sprinkle puppy kibble on top of her food. And three weeks ago I couldn’t get her to look at a chew toy, but now she wants them just so Puppy can’t have them because they are HER toys. Clearly, I have ignored the advice of Cesar Milan and let her be the pack leader, or more like dictator. Meanwhile, Puppy still has to learn that the paw he likes to chew on belongs to a living thing, who is not to be trifled with.
So the picture-perfect dog family is still a work in progress, but it’s never a dull moment. And I even got lots of cooking done over the first-ever weekend that I got to spend at home with both dogs without flying or going in to work. Watch this space for kimchi.
With Puppy Love,
MD
January 27, 2012
Ducklings! As promised, I am back with my first actual food post since moving to Duckhouse South. Yay! Last weekend I found myself flying and decided to go on a magazine binge. I stopped most of my magazine subscriptions a while ago because I got sick of the clutter, but every now and again I like to get a giant pile of lifestyle porn at the newsstand. This time I picked up Food and Wine and decided to try out Mario Batali’s poelnta and spinach recipe. Mario’s version has cheese, as we can see below in the image that I scanned in from my very own paper copy of Food and Wine that I bought at full price (in case the copyright police are reading).
I thought about putting some cashew cheese on my own version, but just decided to drop the cheese altogether for a really simple recipe that you can actually make in the evening before you plan to eat it. Bravo, Mario!
Skillet-Browned Polenta and Wilted Spinach
3 cups water
1 cup polenta
3 cloves garlic
1 pound spinach
olive oil, 2-3 tablespoons
salt
-make the polenta according to the instructions in this post, then when you are getting ready to put it in the oven, use a large baking pan instead of individual molds.
-bake the polenta and then let it cool for 10-15 minutes.
-cut the polenta into triangular wedges.
-finely chop the garlic and chop the stems off the spinach.
-heat the olive oil in a skillet with the garlic until the garlic is fragrant, then add the spinach and cook until it is wilted. Remove the spinach from the skillet and set aside.
-place the polenta cakes in the skillet and cook them for a couple of minutes on each side until they are browned.
-serve the polenta topped with the spinach.
And now, the visuals. Look how simple and “democratic” the ingredients are.
Cooking the wilted spinach:
The baked polenta cut up in wedges:
Browning the polenta cake in the skillet:
So everyone congratulate me for finally blogging with a recipe. Yaaay, me! Next time I want to do something ultra-ambitious like make kochujang from scratch with a Korean cookbook. But, you know, baby steps. Enjoy your simple, rustic and yet beautifully photographed dinner and practice your hangul for our next adventures.
You know you love me,
Mother Duck
January 25, 2012
Ducklings! Were you worried that I had gone sane and stopped food blogging? Well, if you were, you can stop. Not only am I back, this time I finally finished organizing my kitchen. Even though I have been at Duckhouse South for three months now, it took me until last weekend to have the kitchen up to “my standards.” Which are, I admit, ridiculous. Problem is, I started food blogging while I was deep in an unemployment funk, and most of the time cooking and blogging and playing with kitchen toys were the only productive things I did all day. So it was then that I developed the benchmark for what my kitchen should look like. If I were to describe the look, it’s very much like the classic Julia Child setup, with everything in its place, just made for someone who is hyper-visual with a crappy memory.
I am, of course, very fussy about how things are organized. But the most important thing for me is that everything has to be in clear, labeled containers and all toys must be mounted on the wall where I can see them at all times. This is because if I can’t see everything I have all the time, I will totally forget what I have and end up buying duplicates of something I already own but can’t find. Then I end up with three paring knives and enough cornmeal to feed a family of six. So my wacky kitchen organization system does prevent these mishaps, but it takes forever to implement. When I moved to Duckhouse West, it took me nearly two months to have the kitchen up to the Mother Duck Code. With Duckhouse South it’s been three months. I think I have to stop moving.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I do temp work with really short notice, so both of my most recent cross-country moves have been fly-by-night jobs where I take a plastic container and stuff it with dog bowls, kitchen toys, spice jars, underwear and whatever else will fit. Then when I show up in my new place I say to myself “I can’t make flatbread because I can’t find the dough blade for my food processor! Where the hell is it? Oh, wrapped in a bra and packed with my stapler, that’s where.” But now that my dough blade is present and accounted for, I have no excuse for not making food. And in fact I just did a sexy photo shoot for my latest dish, coming soon.
But while you wait for the food, check out the Kitchen that Crazy Built. My general rule is that I mount as much as possible on the wall so I can see it, so I have the twelve spices I use most on the fridge right near the stove:
The rest of the more exotic spices have their own home, which in Duckhouse South is the kitchen hallway (NYC kitchens represent!).
The most heavily-used kitchen toys live on a bar right next to the kitchen sink.
While the sharp shiny things are mounted on a magnetic wall thingy (its scientific name).
All other random toys are wall-mounted, lest I forget that I own a candy thermometer and apple slicer (been known to happen).
But the most important part is the dry goods pantry, which in Duckhouse South is inside a closet so I need to make it easy to find things. Yes, taking things out of their original packaging and putting them in labelled containers is totally OCD, but you will thank your crazy self if you take the time to do it. It’s especially awesome in places like NYC where we don’t have that much space. Using uniformly shaped containers allows you to stack things higher and have less wasted space in your cabinets.
Since I’m ultra-obsessive, I like to label everything, but if you are lazy (or just normal) you can skip labels for the things you can visually identify. Like for example, in the photo above I labeled the container with “peanuts” but I could probably identify the peanuts even without a label. But, for many reasons, it is very important to always label the white powders. Otherwise you might end up in a predicament like this one.
Somehow, one container of white stuff managed to slip through the cracks and I later tried to figure out what it was. I tasted it and that didn’t help much. It was a creamy off-white and not blue-white so I figured it was not one of my wacky molecular gastronomy ingredients. I thought it was flour of some sort, but to test it out I did a throwaway batch of scones with a cup of “flour.” The batter looked batter-y enough, but when I went to taste the batter it was really bitter. Then I realized what kind of “flour” it was- wheat gluten flour! To test this theory I compared it side-by-side with my (labeled) wheat gluten – problem solved! I have to say though, it was a lot of work, so I wouldn’t bother with this kind of experiment unless you have quite a bit of Mystery Ingredient. Otherwise, throw it away and forget it ever happened. I won’t tell.
On a side note, it seems that I am not the only crazy blogger (meaning blogger who is crazy, as opposed to people who blog about the crazy) who uses the duck as a mascot. It seems that the folks over at Shrink Rap are also fans, given that they have 31 posts about ducks. That’s OK, I guess we can share. They also seem to have a thing for emotional support ducks, and I totally want one, yet I fear the mean streets of NYC are no place to raise a real-life duckling. So in the meantime I shall have to be content with my virtual Ducklings. Stay tuned for….real food I promise!
Love,
Mother Duck
December 29, 2011
Ducklings! Merry December 28th, and may our Dear Leader rest in peace. I’m kinda bummed that I missed the live coverage because I was sedated into sweet slumber in my dorm bed in the loony bin. Yes, Mother Duck has finally gone quackers. Last Thursday I was having a panic attack, and I had this incredibly naive thought that if I went to an ER they could give me some super-hardcore sedatives to make it stop and then I could sleep it off for a night and be home in time to celebrate a Very Special December 25th with Grass Fed Dog. But I learned something, kids. Don’t show up at a hospital with a racing heart and say “Just sedate me so that I can’t feel like this anymore” within 100 feet of a doctor, otherwise you might win yourself a 6 day “staycation” in the psych ward. You see, there is a terrible Catch-22 about the mind-altering drugs. Sometimes we may really need them to take the edge off, but if we act too excited about the prospect, then we might get the label of “junkie.”
Like an idiot, I actually checked myself in to the hospital, and to the extent that I wanted to breathe normally and have my heart stop beating a million beats a minute my entry was “voluntary.” But then they told my on Friday afternoon (after I had “voluntarily” let myself be admitted) that no real doctors would be there to fix me until Tuesday and I would be spending the weekend at the Hotel California. So I had another mini-freakout and asked to leave, but then was told by the kindly staff that if I pursued that avenue I would probably have my status converted to “involuntary” and it would be much longer until I felt the brisk winter air. By that point I had seen enough hospital bureaucracy to realize that cooperation was the best medicine and I resigned myself to roaming the halls in my PJs and getting meds in a plastic cup for a few days.
The first couple of days were not so bad. I was tired from my ordeal in the ER, where I was mostly ignored while all of the security guards focused their efforts on a woman who kept spinning in circles saying she was God and wouldn’t let anyone touch her. But after a few days I couldn’t sleep through the night even after using up my maximum allowance of sleepy pills, and I kept having dreams about going outside jogging (I *hate* jogging) and seeing Grass Fed Dog. Doesn’t take a Freudian to figure out where that was going. So I started to ask when I could leave. But then I realized that was a mistake because there is nothing like saying “I’M NOT CRAZY GET ME OUT OF HERE!!” to add extra days to your tenure. A tip to my Ducklings- should you ever find yourself in a psych ward and want to get out, the best thing to say is something like “My time here has been so restful and the staff has taken such great care of me, and I am going to miss all of my new friends, but perhaps I might like to go home, if you see fit to discharge me in your all-powerful doctor-y discretion.”
My first few days had also been not-so-bad because I got some Allied Nurses to charge my iPad in the nurses station overnight and give it to me fully charged in the morning (pysch patients aren’t allowed to have electrical cords, for reasons you might fathom). But then Enemy Nurses gained control of my prized possession and confiscated my charger, so I had to spend the rest of the time dipping into the paperback selections in the patient library. Another thing we were not allowed to have was cameras, for reasons I can appreciate. Except that it prevented me from snapping photos of really awesome stuff like a copy of “A Million Little Pieces” with a sticker saying “Psych Ward Library” on the front. Priceless. And what better thing to read when spending Christmas in a mental hospital?
I had totally missed out on the whole James Frey-Oprah thing so I had to Google it when I got home. What I don’t understand is how anyone could have believed that story was real because the first 100 pages of the book (which is all I got through) describes all this gruesome facial reconstruction and dental work done without anesthesia, but the guy in the picture didn’t seem to have any scars or any evidence that anyone had beaten the crap out of him. I’m also kind of jealous because I too could use a beat-poet writing style to describe having a root canal with no Novocaine: “It really fucking hurts, it fucking hurts so bad, I want to get fucked up and forget the pain, just forget the fucking pain cuz it fucking hurts.” Oprah gig and book deal, please??
I also found out that it’s really easy for them to find out that all kinds of things are wrong with you. I came in as a size-2 wine lover having a panic attack, I left with Anxiety Disorder with a possible Eating Disorder and Substance Abuse Problem. That’s because I told the intake nurse I usually have wine with dinner (Alcoholic) and I came in underweight for my height and refused to eat the overcooked vegetables (Anorexic). I said to them “You don’t understand, I’m a food blogger, I love to eat, I’m just naturally thin, really!” But I was dropping weight even though I took everyone’s uneaten dinner rolls and hoarded graham crackers in my room, so I started wearing my puffer coat everywhere in the hopes that no one would notice or weigh me again (success on that front).
Now that I’m out, I can say it wasn’t *all* negative. I got lots of heavily medicated sleep, I did make friends, and the movie nights kind of felt like college, except that you didn’t get to stroll around campus, or leave, ever. But the nights when I woke up in the hard twin bed and couldn’t hear Grass Fed Dog snoring are something I don’t want to repeat. And I thought about real food constantly. So what did I have for dinner on my first night of freedom? Penne Alla Vodka, of course. Creamy, spicy, alcoholic, forbidden…awesome. I am reposting the original here for your reading pleasure.
Spicy Penne Alla Vodka
1/2 pound penne pasta
2 tomatoes
2 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon chili oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup soy milk
black pepper to taste
salt to taste
1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons of warm water
1/4 cup vodka
-cook the pasta according to the instructions on the box so that it comes out al dente. Set aside.
-core the tomatoes and chop them into 4-6 slices. Peel the garlic.
-place all of the ingredients except the vodka and the cornstarch/water mix in a blender.
-blend on the highest setting for 1-2 minutes until you get a thick orangey-pink liquid.
-pour the liquid into a saucepan and heat on medium until it comes to a boil.
-add the cornstarch/water mixture and stir until the sauce thickens.
-add the cooked pasta to the sauce and stir until the noodles are evenly coated.
-add the vodka and cook on medium heat for 3-5 minutes or until the alcohol from the vodka boils off.
-remove from heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes, then serve.
Good night, and don’t let the crazy bugs bite.
MD
December 26, 2011
Ducklings! Today is December 26th and you know what that is. Yes, it’s two days before the official funeral of our fallen Dear Leader. I know our man in elevator shoes was, to put it mildly, “controversial.” But he was always fascinating. And I can’t wait to see the funeral spectacle (gymnastics, anyone?) and maybe someday read the unauthorized biographies.
But in the meantime, we can raise our glasses of cognac in tribute. And if you need some snacks, I am re-posting my original North Korean birthday feast. Whatever you thought of the guy, his passing truly marks the end of an era.
MD
Kimchi Mandu
skins
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup boiling water
-place the flour in a food processor and turn on. Slowly pour the boiling water through the chute in the top until the dough forms a ball. This shouldn’t use the entire cup of water, perhaps 2/3 to 3/4 cup.
-knead the dough until smooth with the kneading blade, then transfer the dough to the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours before shaping the dumplings.
filling
1 cup kimchi, chopped
4 scallions, finely chopped
1/2 block of firm tofu, drained and crumbled
4 teaspoons thin soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
-mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Set aside in the fridge until you are ready to roll out the dough.
Forming the Dumplings
-divide the dough into 32 uniformly sized pieces.
-using your tortilla press or your hands, press each ball of dough until it is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. There is a tortilla press in the Duckhouse, so that is what we used. Make sure you coat both sides with flour frequently.
-to set up your dumpling station, get out a small Asian-style rolling pin (no handles) and a large cutting board. Keep small bowls of flour and water by your side in addition to the filling.
-start by placing the 1 1/2 inch disc in the center of the cutting board and roll out only the edges, turning a quarter turn after each roll to keep the size even. Stop when the size reaches about 3 inches in diameter.
-place about 2 teaspoons of filling in the center of the dough and fold over to close. If necessary, use a little water to seal the edges.
-to get the fan shape, pinch the edge and then pull so that there is a slight overlap (like a pleat in a pair of pants), then push down directly over the pleat. Repeat this every half inch or so.
Cooking the Dumplings
Fill a medium saucepan about halfway with water and bring to a boil. Put the dumplings in the water and cook for about 4-6 minutes. Gently remove with a slotted spoon and serve with dipping sauce. I used a combination of soy sauce, rice vinegar and gochujang. If you don’t have gochujang, Sriracha is a good substitute.
Mix the gochujang, vinegar and soy in about equal parts and top with sesame seeds.
Kimchi Mari Bap
[for one serving]
1 cup cold rice
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/2 cup ‘kimchi water’ (liquid from your jar of kimchi)
1/2 cup kimchi, chopped
top part of one scallion, finely chopped, for garnish
-mix all ingredients except the scallions in a mixing bowl, then transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with scallions.
This also tastes good topped with a little soy sauce and gochujang.
Baesuk
2 Asian pears (nashi or naju)
1 heaping teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1/2 inch fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups water
1 cup rice wine (sake)
pine nuts for garnish
-peel and core the pears and cut them into 6-8 small pieces.
-press 2-3 peppercorns into the outer surface of each piece.
-put the rice wine, water and ginger in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then let it simmer for 10 minutes.
-add the sugar and stir until it is dissolved.
-add the pears, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
-remove from heat and place in a sealable container. Refrigerate for a few hours to cool.
-to serve, place a few pieces in a bowl and pour over a bit of poaching liquid. Garnish with pine nuts.
December 17, 2011
So it is Saturday once again and I’ve told myself (for the millionth time) that this is the weekend when I will finally finish organizing my kitchen and installing my spice racks and knife blocks so that I can really cook from scratch again instead of ordering so much takeout food. But it seems that I have been spending far too much of my time dealing with the Electric Internet Machine (EIM if you need a geeky acronym).
Since I’ve gotten my own website I have come to realize that food is only half of food blogging. The other half involves that pesky box that the Chinese call a dian nao (电脑), which means “electric brain.” Unfortunately, if my intelligence were judged by the electric brain, I would definitely be riding the short bus. When I had jobs that were fancy enough to have full-time IT support, I’m sure I was the most hated employee because I would call them with things like “the computer screen is blinking blue at me, make it stop!”
I also realized that when I started teaching myself to cook from scratch it was about empowerment. When I was in law school in my late 20′s and had in theory tons of time to cook, I don’t think I ever used the oven in my student apartment. The oven was like this mysterious, scary box that was kind of there but I didn’t care to know what I could do with it. Despite the fact that I know how to turn on my EIM and make the Internets go, the computer has replaced the oven as the Great Unknown in my household. And so I feel that I must somehow conquer it.
Don’t get me wrong, I am still dying to get back to cooking and posting food porn, but from my struggles with computer idiocy I’ve come to believe that computer self-sufficiency is just as important as food self-sufficiency. A year and a half ago I didn’t even know how to sharpen a knife properly. Now I volunteer to sharpen other people’s dull knives. It’s nice to go from not knowing the difference between batonnet and julienne to becoming a self-proclaimed knife master. So could learning how to configure a proxy server and do a 7-pass secure erase provide the same thrill? Maybe not, since computer geekery doesn’t produce tasty food. But the control freak side of me loves to be able to understand and manipulate the enigmatic electric brain.
Of course, the first thing that prompted my sudden interest in the EIM was my Facebook privacy freakout. Now that I am finally free of the world of like as a noun and friend as a verb, my attention has turned to people search websites. They are, hmmmm…what’s the technical term for it….CREEPY AS ALL HELL. I mean, can you think of a legitimate, non-stalker-y purpose for using a site called PeekYou?? When I looked myself up on one of them I saw a street view photo of the house where I grew up and where my parents still live. One of the sites even had the room number of every single one of my college dorm rooms from the 1990s. Scary stuff.
So I made it my mission to get rid of references to my legal name on as many of the sites as possible. The problem is that there are like a gazillion of them and there’s almost no way you could ever ensure that you could track down every one. So if you don’t want this sort of thing to consume your life, start by Googling yourself and seeing which people search sites have hits for you. Then look yourself up on PeekYou (ewww!), Spokeo, and Intelius for good measure. But the one site you really really need to get yourself out of is MyLife. Since they were by far the most difficult site to opt out of, I reserve special hatred for them. Despite it’s ulta-sketchy name, PeekYou is really easy to opt out of online. MyLife, on the other hand, deliberately sends you on a wild goose chase and makes it nearly impossible to find out how to truly opt- out. But since I hate them so much I’m going to tell you how to do just that, in excruciating detail.
When I first tried to get out of MyLife, I started by “claiming” my profile on their site, which requires you to sign up for a free “membership” whose terms and conditions include all kinds of horrible things like agreeing to let them sell your information and submitting to mandatory arbitration. Yikes. So I went to my own profile and tried to click “remove” and it said I had to contact customer service in order to delete my profile/account. So I called the customer service number that they listed and it played a recorded message then went dead without even giving you a menu or any option to speak to a real person. Bastards! After this I decided “I will get out of MyLife if it’s the last thing I do!!” (insert Gargamel voice here). I searched all over and finally found their opt-out form and printed it out. I had to use the Google to find the link, since nothing takes you there when you go through the “privacy” section of their website. Sneaky, sneaky. (UPDATE: I posted a link but it doesn’t work anymore. They also seem to have changed their fax number. As of March 2012, this is a link to their claiming form.) MyLife is ultra-shady. They are already the target of a class-action lawsuit for their spam-and-scam practices (go plaintiffs lawyers, go!).
You need to get the url for your own MyLife profile in order to instruct them to get rid of it. So go on the site mylife.com and look up yourself. You will get a pop up screen saying you need to create a free account in order to see yourself. Ignore that. Scroll down and it should list the results that come up under your name. Since Mark Zuckerberg, in addition to doing chicken right, is a public figure, let’s pick on him some more. If you go to his profile it will list a url, in this case “mylife.com/mzuckerb.” When you do this for yourself, write down your own url on the claiming form.
A Recipe for Privacy- How to Opt out of MyLife.com
1. Get the url of your own profile (see immediately above)
2. Scan in or copy your ID or a bill with your name and address (I strongly recommend passport for this one because I wouldn’t want to give them my current home address)
3. Write your profile url on a piece of paper along with your name and address. Use your immediately previous address if you don’t want them to know where you live now (and why would you??). They don’t require this, but for good measure, write “Please remove my information and do not distribute it to any third parties” and sign your name with a date.
4. Annoyingly, though not surprisingly, there is no way to email the form or do the opt-out online. You need to fax it in to (310) 943-3312 or write to them at Customer Service, MyLife.com, 2118 Wilshire Blvd., P.O. Box 1008, Santa Monica, CA 90403-5784.
There are quite a few sites that will only let you opt out by fax. By now, you must be thinking what I’m thinking: Who the hell has an actual fax machine at home? But despair not. You can get an internet fax account for around 8-10 clams a month. There are also sites where you can send an internet fax for “free” with advertisements, but I find it’s worth it to get a paid service. It’s also good because you get a dedicated 7-digit number for your incoming faxes that you can use as a “phone number” for all those internet forms where you don’t want to give them your real number.
My apologies for being long-winded and servicey, but I hope you’ve learned an awesome life lesson.
It’s my life, don’t you forget.
MD
December 14, 2011
Ducklings! I have some life-changing yet totally anti-climactic news. It is no longer possible to “like” Mother Duck on Facebook. Mother Duck has also ceased to maintain a Facebook page in Grass Fed Dog’s official purebred name. This was from back in 2007 when the Citizen Facial Recognition Repository didn’t care so much about the use of pseudonyms. Or require you to grant a perpetual license in all of your photos forever until the end of time. Really, there are so many wacky things they have done with “privacy” over the years that each change just looks sort of comical, except that in all of our lives we may eventually get to that very special “Facebook Freakout Moment,” when the near-daily barrages of news about Facebook privacy concerns move out of that “white noise” category and somehow get pushed to the forefront of your brain in the “Big Mark is always watching me” category.
And believe me, once you pop, you can’t stop. You most certainly can’t eat just one. Start Googling “Facebook Privacy” and you will see all kinds of fun things like the 2009 changes that gave them an “exclusive, non-irrevocable” license over all your images, ever. Or how they have started to use facial recognition software to tag embarrassing things that happened in Vegas and should stay in Vegas.
Oh, and even after you delete your profile it takes 14 days of inactivity (no after care…) for your profile to be really and truly….sort of deleted, except for those pesky pictures. As Big Mark so ironically found out in his quest for the perfect farm-to-table fried chicken. He would be getting the chicken nuggets on the 99 cent menu at McDonald’s were it not for the amount of our personal data he controls. [UPDATE: There is a great article in the Village Voice about the growing anti-Facebook movement. My favorite quote: "Mr. Zuckerberg richly deserves bankruptcy...let's give it to him."]
As it turns out, my Facebook Freakout Moment happened just days before Mark’s own day of reckoning with the fallen poultry. I just took that an as affirmation of my decision. However, I will admit that my social network seppuku was not so well premeditated. I probably should have left a longer transition period rather than ripping off the band-aid and going all cold tofu. Then again, lengthy dialogue in Zuckerberg-space about the need to get out of Facebook is also just a wee bit counterproductive.
So now, my Ducklings, I greet you from outside the fray, and I can say that life indeed goes on. If you join me out here on the fringes, you might even “like” the freedom.
I Like Your Status,
Mother Duck
November 8, 2011
Happy Monday, Ducklings! I just got back from a hard day’s temping and I’m happy to say I am writing this from my very own apartment. Mind you, I am nowhere near having a functional kitchen but I managed to plug in the Electric Internet Machine and find my wine opener. You know, important stuff.
I also had a chance to catch up on the Sunday New York Times, which I can always count on for articles about People Just Like Me. I haven’t had Duckhouse South photographed for the Sunday Styles section just yet, but people will inevitably say things to me like “Did you read that article in the Times? I totally thought of you.” You mean the one about the outer-borough dwelling French Bulldog parents who got laid off from the their law jobs, have clinical depression, and would just rather bake? Yeah, I saw that. I guess disillusioned lawyers who would rather cook have become so common as to be an urban cliche.
The funny thing is, people know very well that the legal profession has a pretty high rate of depression, and there is even a niche website for Lawyers With Depression. But it’s one thing to read an article about depressed lawyers in the Sunday lifestyle section, and quite another to think your own lawyer or your own employee might be suffering from a mental illness. People can handle the idea in the abstract, but not in individual cases. Americans with Disabilities Act aside, asking your legal employer to make accommodations for your depression probably isn’t going to do wonders for your career. Even though many top law firms maintain “wellness programs” and state bar associations give lectures on “work/life issues,” no one seems to want to make any real changes that would actually alleviate workplace depression.
With all this press about depressed lawyers, you might think that every unhappy lawyer has clinical depression. But even that’s not the case. Sure, the correlation between depression and dissatisfaction with the legal profession might be pretty high, but it isn’t 100%. Some attorneys who are unhappy with their jobs are just expressing normal (and healthy) doubts about the harsh realities of the profession. Meanwhile, some others might really want to be lawyers but find themselves in a black pit of despair and unable to get out.
When I was practicing law full-time, I was clearly miserable but still afraid to say that I had been diagnosed with depression. The only reason I can write about it now is that I regard myself as “retired” from that line of work. When I left, I thought I was never going back. I totally wanted to start a food truck and/or go to culinary school, or maybe just become a full time lifestyle blogger. So it really surprises me that I’ve found my peace with the law by…doing temporary law gigs.
Temp lawyering doesn’t exactly have the best reputation. Some people even spend their free time complaining about it in the blogosphere. But the only reason I am writing about it right now is that my kitchen isn’t quite ready for full-on food blogging. In my case, I have found it strangely liberating. I suppose it’s because when I take a job, I know I am only committing to lawyering for another three to six months, as opposed to (*shudder*) the rest of my life. It also pays the web hosting fees and the rent for Duckhouse South. So it’s not a sexy headline like “Former Lawyer Opens Coco Curry Mac Truck,” but for now, it will do just fine.
Love,
MD