Nisshoku was born in a household with a cat hoarding problem. We have photos of him visiting our yard from as early as October of last year (see Plymouth's Rainstation Rescues album), and I had seen him and his siblings in the front yard of the house earlier than that. Eventually the hoarders were evicted, many of his kin were confiscated by the local PHS/SPCA, and he was left on the street. When we realized they were gone and there were several cats left with nobody taking care of them, we did our best to get everyone fixed, vaccinated, and re-settled. We caught seven cats, and our understanding is there were a few more, a Siamese with some kittens, who were caught by a different neighbor and just turned in to PHS.
The first month or so that we were feeding him he gained back some weight that he had lost with no steady source of food -- though that still left him at like 6.5 pounds. But after that he started to lose energy and spend more time sleeping. He still was happy to see us bring food, and would do these little jump-headbutts against your hand or knee, but he was clearly a bit slower than the other three cats who visit us regularly. Eventually he developed an eye infection, and we noticed him having a wet cough. When I took him to the vet, they concluded that he had some really bad health condition -- we're still not sure what the underlying issue was, most likely either lymphoma, or feline infectious peritonitis. (FIP is caused by an interaction of a genetic issue with a common cold type coronavirus. There's actually an experimental drug that was already undergoing testing for FIP, which has been pulled into trials for Covid-19, because the mechanism of action is similar, causing fluid to leak from blood vessels.)
We brought him indoors for a couple of weeks to treat the eye, hoping that keeping him away from the bad air quality would also help his lungs. Unfortunately it was difficult having him as an indoor cat, because if we didn't physically pick him up and put him in the litter about every two hours, he would pee in random places, which meant at night he had to be locked in the bathroom with absorbent pads. He did seem to get better for a bit. The eye infection cleared out. He was left with some cloudiness in his cornea, but he was able to focus with both eyes again. He was able to jump up on the counter to go after food, and he came and explored the bedroom and jumped up with me while I was working on the bed. When the air quality got better, we moved him back outside to an enclosure -- the little gazebo we used to use to have connected to a cat door, so Hoshi and Tsuki could sit outdoors at our house in San Mateo. He seemed to like being able to at least watch the birds and sniff the air. We were still concerned if we just let him out, when we needed to medicate him twice a day, he might start hiding from us at the medication times.
Unfortunately a few days ago he lost interest in food, and began rapidly declining. Two nights ago when we came out to try to bring him some food, and apply appetite stimulant to his ear, he came out of the enclosure and crawled right into my lap, whereas usually to give him medicine I'd had to grab him. (Although once the medicine was over, he was generally content to sit there, take a treat or two, and get pets and warmth.) He hung out there while his brother Gesshoku and their friend Taiyō wove circles around me begging for kibbles.
We kept him one more night inside the gazebo, because he was in no condition to protect himself from raccoons, and there seemed better than the bathroom. We let him out yesterday morning, and tried again to offer some food. He took a couple licks, but then toddled off through a hole in the fence. We were worried he might just go hide in a bush and expire, or get himself in trouble with a dog, but he came back in the afternoon and hung out in the yard for the rest of the day. Around 9:30pm when I went out to bring wet food, I found him collapsed just below the step outside the back door, unable to raise his head. I figured if he'd dragged himself there, maybe he was associating getting inside with being safer. We brought him in and tucked him into a basket with some towels, to keep him warm and as comfortable as we could. Eventually we put the basket in bed between us. He passed away some time after 1:30am -- Plymouth woke up to use the restroom in the small hours and realized he'd gone.
He was a sweet tiny thing, and made an excellent lapcat once he got over his feral spookiness. I wish he'd had more time. We've wondered if we should've just let him out earlier, but we did our best with the information we had. We'd been hoping that the treatment would buy him a few extra healthy months. At least he got to take one more lap around his territory, and then spent his final hours somewhere warm and safe.
A role model for procrastinators everywhere, Hoshi was sloth incarnate. She wanted nothing more than to eat, sleep, occasionally get petted and groomed, and watch the day roll by from a comfortable pillow. It's possible she was just as clever as her mastermind sister, but simply couldn't be bothered to get into mischief -- all that effort was beneath her dignity.
She had been chronically ill with some mild bowel inflammation and diabetic symptoms, over the last two years, but that seemed to be under control with a daily oral steroid. She died very suddenly today -- keeled over on her side and lay there panting, was rushed to the nearest emergency vet, managed to get up for a bit and act normal briefly, but then relapsed and died. The vet thought it was most likely a stroke.
I will miss my sessile pudge-a-puss. She was a most excellent bedwarmer.
plymouth and I volunteer with a group called The Purrfect Catch, which does fostering and adoption for cats that are OK around people, and trap / fix / manage-in-place for ferals. We go and visit one of our local colonies once a week to feed them and keep an eye out for any developing health issues, or new cats that may need to be fixed / vaccinated / etc.
One of the volunteers who handled two stations along the SF Bay Trail, in South San Francisco and San Bruno, recently dropped out due to health issues, so the management of the group is looking for one or more volunteers who live in that area who could handle visiting a feeding and shelter station on any of Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Any time during the day is fine, though before full dark is preferable. (The person who's dropped out was retired, and had been able to handle all three.)
If interested, I can put you in touch with the head of the group.
If you're considering noise cancelling headphones for commuting on our ridiculously loud trains around here, I recommend the QuietPoint ATH-ANC70, from Audio-Technica.
I bought a used pair of these portable (battery powered) noise-cancelling headphones recently, to use on the BART, and I really liked them. They deliver performance comparable to the best Bose or Sony stuff, at a significantly lower price point (admittedly still not cheap, but, well, $200 is significantly less than the $300-350 I was seeing for the comparable Sony and Bose models; and I got the used pair for somewhat less than that). Unfortunately, after a couple months of frequent use, something in the electronics died, and they stopped working. I was really bummed because they were not under warranty (and even if they were, I would've needed the original receipt from the guy I got them from). But I got in touch with tech support, and shipped the 'phones in to their service center.
They sent me back a brand new pair, along with a note saying that they concluded there was a manufacturing flaw in the ones I sent in, and they were replacing them free of charge, even though they had survived past the warranty period. They even paid the return shipping.
I figure when a company exceeds my expectations by that much, they deserve some recognition.
Since I've mentioned making these in recent FB posts, I thought I'd post the recipe.
For reference, this is the waffle iron I use. I turn it up to the max setting, and its indicator lights work pretty well, with the Bisquick version of this. If you swap the Bisquick for the substitute mixture, you get a denser waffle -- each one has more heft, and is chewier / less fluffy -- and you need to wait maybe 45-75 seconds past when the indicator light says it's done, to get something properly cooked through and browned. OTOH, maybe you like a lighter waffle, in which case the light will be fine...
Bisquick substitution: Bisquick contains hydrogenated oils, so some folks like to avoid it; I am told by folks who've experimented (including my dad and my older brother) that there doesn't seem to be anything else on the market that makes as-fluffy waffles; the industrial sifters and mixers can coat the flour granules with oil in a way that ensures they don't bind up and form a dense, gluten-y batter. However, the first time I made this, I used the substitute, and they were still, IMHO, pretty darn tasty. So, the substitution: One cup of Bisquick is more or less equivalent to a mix of one cup of flour, 1½ teaspoons of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of oil. Mix up your not-Bisquick before the step where you combine it with the nut butter.
One of the nice things about these is that you can make a ton of them -- we've been doing them in double batches, which gets even the big 6qt KitchenAid bowl alarmingly full -- and freeze what you don't eat that day; they're fine in the freezer for at least two weeks. Probably longer, but we always eat them all by then. :-)
To reheat, put them on a baking pan, covered with foil, and stick in a 375F oven for about 15 minutes, then pull the foil off, stick back in for ~2.5 minutes, flip over, stick back in for another ~2.5 minutes, then serve. This process of getting them warm in a way that keeps them moist (steamy, even), and then crisping them up on both sides, will bring them back to almost exactly the state they were in when they were fresh off the iron.
In a small pot, combine: One small (5.5 oz) can of coconut milk. A similar amount of milk. 1/2 cup of tapioca pearls. 1/4 cup of crystallized coconut palm sap, or other form of palm sugar; or you could use a bit less of regular sugar, or even some maple syrup. (And honestly, given how sweet the dish came out, you could probably cut the sugar by 10-15% relative to this, as long as you're using palmyras in syrup, not packed in just water or some kind of juice.) a pinch of salt (maybe 1/4 tsp?)
Simmer for five minutes. Add one mango, diced, and maybe half a cup of palm seeds. (We found them jarred, in syrup, at our local Asian grocer. I generally expect stuff in glass jars to taste fresher than stuff in cans, but it probably doesn't make a huge difference.)
Simmer for another five minutes. Test the a pearl to see if it's cooked through.
Cooking time may need adjustment depending on exactly what size / type of pearls you use.
Xta remarks that she should've taken a photo; it's not particularly pretty, but it is quite tasty. I was attempting to replicate a dessert I had once, a number of years ago, at a South-Chinese place in Mountain View. I think I came reasonably close, actually, on the first try.
A photo of this waterfall, in more or less this same condition, was part of how I originally pitched the idea of going to Spain for our honeymoon. As I recall, Xta asked me whether there would be any snow in Spain, so I went googling for photos with "Spain ice", "Spain snow", and "Spain winter"...
Obviously the person is included in this photo solely to give you a sense of scale, not because it was totally awesome to creep out and touch the giant 9-foot-long icicles.
When we were starting the hike, there was a family (British?) coming back down. Their daughter, who was probably about 10 or 12, was carrying a javelin-length icicle in her mitten. Now that's parenting I approve of.
I'm pirating this from stuff I originally wrote up for our travel agent, then adding more detail that may be more of interest to friends, especially if you might be visiting some of the same cities...
Edited to Add: Xta added a few good thoughts down in the comments. Also, since I mentioned I was writing this for our agent, I should mention her: Laurie Valdez of Peak Travel was extremely helpful in planning the trip, even working through the last few itinerary details outside regular work hours so Xta and I could sit in our living room and talk things through with her directly rather than going back and forth in email. We found her through the Better World Club. (Which I also recommend in general -- it's like AAA, except not evil. AAA funds lobbying against public transit, cleaner cars, etc. If you join BWC, get our member number, I believe there's a referral credit.)
Next time (probably at least ten years out, sigh), we want to get back to see the progress on Sagrada Familia, then visit the Euskal Herria, and San Sebastian and Bilbao -- there are no less than four of the World 50 up that way -- Mugaritz, Arzak, Martín Berasategui, and Asador Etxebarri -- as well as of course the Guggenheim Bilbao. Then maybe we could go back south and actually see Segovia and Toledo (and I could also add that I'm interested in getting to Salamanca and Zaragoza), then go down south for Seville, Cordova, Málaga, and Cadiz... And of course we still wouldn't have gotten to the northwesternmost area, with places like Gijón, and all of Galicia, which has its own dialect and culture (Gallego) like Catalunya... It turns out that Spain is kinda big.
I've finished annotating the photos from El Celler de Can Roca, which placed second on last year's World's 50 Best list. And I can see why.
Interestingly, although it's certainly expensive -- the most we've ever paid for a meal, by a substantial margin -- while we were in Madrid, I had an email from one of the coupon services offering a discounted seating at some up-and-coming place in the Mission that just got awarded two Michelin stars. The price for this place, even after the discount, would be more than what we paid for El Celler; and I'm not even accounting for tax and tip. This place is clearly commanding a premium simply for being the hot new thing; there is no way it can possibly justify such a stratospheric cost, solely based on food quality. In any case, after running those numbers in my head, I decided there was no reason to go, and so I forgot the actual name.
I have finally finished writing in descriptions on photos from Espai Sucre, the "dessert restaurant" that Elizabeth Falkner told us we needed to try. It was awesome, and I can see why she's into it. We are kind of taking today "off" from running around seeing sights, and just chilling out at our friends' house in a suburb of Guadalajara, the city with too many As.
...at least to my mind, is "hace [tiempo]". (Incidentally, "tiempo" can translate as "time" or "weather". I'm thinking about time here, even though you also can ask "¿Qué tiempo hace?" to ask what the weather is.) You get things like: "¿Cuánto hace que está construyendo esta valla? Hace una semana que él lo construye." Literally, this translates to something like, "How much does it make, that he is building this fence? It makes one week that he builds it." Idiomatically, it's more like, "How long has it been since he started building the fence? It has been one week since he started constructing it."
What gets me is the fact that both verbs involved are in present tense. My understanding is that the nature of the "hace [tiempo]" construction does require that whatever you're asking about continue to be true into the present time; you're attaching an earlier starting date to something that can be thought of in present tense. So, you can say, "Hace tres mil años que el Rey Tutankhamun lleva muerto." It has been three thousand years that King Tut carries* deadness. This conception sorta helps make it work in my head, but I still find the construction strange. Even stranger than subjunctive, and don't get me started on how bizarre I find the use of subjunctive. (In particular, how come I don't use subjunctive with "creer"? When I say, "I think that X", I almost always mean that I believe it, but am not certain of it. If I were certain of it, I would simply state proposition X. So why do we get indicative with "creo que X", but subjunctive with "espero que X", I hope that X.)
If you want to talk about something that isn't true anymore, I'm pretty sure you have to use something else, like "[tiempo] atrás", which you might translate as an amount of time aft; "X está detrás de Y" says that X is located in a place behind Y, whereas the "a" particle in "atrás" gives a sense of movement and directionality, towards the back. To say "I spoke Spanish pretty well fifteen years ago, but I've forgotten a lot," I use, "Hablaba español bastante bien quince años atrás, pero he olvidado mucho." I think this is pretty good idiom, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't suppose anyone out there is a fluent enough speaker to comment on this? (Maybe kragen and paisleychick?)
* "Llevar" can mean "to carry" or "to wear", but it can also be used with adjectives like "muerto", dead, and "casado", married -- although that one almost always gets used in the plural, casados, for obvious reasons. These days some of y'all might even be llevando casadas. Hooray for diversity! :-)
ETA: Rosetta stone gives some examples where they use a preterite verb with "hace [tiempo]", and they appear to mean ago. ("Mis abuelos se casaron en África hace cien años," appears to be "My grandparents married each other in Africa one hundred years ago.") So maybe at least in European Spanish that's the correct form? Blargh. I got taught kind of a mix of European and American Spanishes, because I had teachers who'd learned different ways, over different years of school. And then I forgot most of it, so it's all a bit of a muddle... :-/
I don't feel like taking the time to properly edit a table-formatted entry to post the pix from ep04, so I'm just putting them on Flickr. You can see the pix here.
Xta took some shots as well, and may've put some up on her Flickr account.
Best episode yet. Both the main challenge, and the secret ingredient elimination, had some very tight competition. Elizabeth emerged with a well-deserved victory; the other two folks in the top three had ingredients that were significantly easier to work with. (A cinnamon syrup is not that hard to work into a savory -- you can get that into a variety of European, Moroccan, or even Chinese dishes -- and for the root beer, heck, folks in the South braise or marinate meat in soda-based liquids all the time. If you haven't had Coca-Cola based bbq sauce, you don't know what you're missing.)
For this week's event, Elizabeth got ambitious, and made stuff with almost all the other chefs' ingredients, as well as replicating her own dishes. I believe her phrasing was, "We took the other ingredients and made better things with them." *g*
They're probably going to skip next week (because of Thanksgiving), and then do a double-header the week after. This week was actually less crowded than last, which surprised me. Maybe Falkner fans tend to be people for whom coming after work is convenient. I had a pleasant conversation with a Japanese woman who came here a few years ago to go to architecture school, and I finally got to meet Esther, who runs the main kitchen at Orson. And Elizabeth says she'll see what she can do about getting us a table at Tickets, and I sent her the list of evenings we could potentially go, so yay.
So, yeah. That was awesome. And any of you who can should come next time. And if you're not watching the show, it has been, thus far, the best season of NIC that they've aired. (Season Two was pretty good, but I have never forgiven them for making such an egregiously stupid call at the end.) If you like Iron Chef at all, or the concept of competitive cooking, you should check it out. Tomorrow night: cooking mad libs. SRSLY.
The experience of planning a wedding is, apparently, very much like falling into a black hole. The passage of time slows asymptotically towards a halt, and you get stretched thin by unimaginably powerful tidal forces.
Hair appointment today. Meeting with Elizabeth tomorrow. Rehearsal Friday. Wedding Saturday.
Now with more Roman numerals, and only about a hundred days until our wedding. Christa posted some silliness from our dinner conversation. (If you're unable to read it, well, how do you even know me without having gotten on her f-list? It's been seven years!)
Tsuki Onineko
Born in the Palo Alto Baylands Colony circa September 20, 2002
Singer of Songs, Slayer of Bugs, Opener of Doors, Queen of All She Surveyed
Left the SkyDen to join StarClan on March 18, 2011
My parents took us out for dinner. I contributed a $40 coupon I'd acquired from one of the numerous daily-deal sites. How do I love thee, YipIt? Let me count the dollars saved...
Was amused by the Japanese Toto toilet in the bathroom. Left completely stuffed. I think unfortunately I didn't get all the flavors I could've out of some of the things we had, because I was just starting to feel the effects of the bug I came down with today. Sigh. Anyways, we'll have to go back some time, though there are so many good places around SF, it's hard to make return trips to any but our absolute favorites, or ones that are particularly convenient to other places we want to be...
We went to Orson last night to sign paperwork and put down the deposit for our wedding, and talk with their private events coördinator about drawing up the floor layout to figure out the exact count of how many people can fit, and how to time the rehearsal dinner the day before (when they'll still need to be able to open at 5pm for their regular dinner service), and so on. He's supposed to get back to me within a few days, with the layout plans, and a few possible times to meet with Elizabeth to discuss food and cake. We also met the general manager, and talked a bit about the A/V system.
For the meeting, we were hanging out in the nook on the right side of the bar, where the wall-paper kind of looks like slightly-derezzed paisley. In a good way.
Since we were there anyhow, we had dinner. And we were there early enough for happy-hour cocktails...
We've been meaning to make this for a while. The version at Afghani House, in Sunnyvale, is excellent, and recreating that was the goal, though of course with a non-tomato-based meat sauce, because of Xta's allergy/intolerance. This was based on some recipes we found on the internet, mostly this one. We were cooking for five, so we upped the quantities. Next time, I think we'll double it over again, in order to get more leftovers out of it. (We ate what was left for lunch today.)
My friend mickle had a gift certificate for more than she could actually spend with just her and her boy, and she kindly offered to take us along for the ride, as it were. (We chipped in for tip, and I totally owe her a dinner down here at some point.)
As mentioned previously, we went to Graffiti today, after having gone to sbtorpey and oddthink's place for brunch. (I made french toast in S~ and J~'s kitchen, S~ made a salad and a frittata, surpheon and anemone brought syrups and beverages, and another friend, who I think may not be on LJ, brought a bunch of fruit to toss over things. jilflirt and her husband, who I think is on LJ but whose handle I can't remember, showed up too late for brunch, but we got to hang out and chat for a while.)
We'd originally planned to go to Graffiti, Chef Jehangir Mehta's original restaurant, but due to vagaries of planning we couldn't get a reservation there for tonight. (So we're going there tomorrow. *g*) We had a reservation for five at the brand new place, Mehtaphor, which ended up falling down to three by this evening, after one friend I'd thought might be able to come couldn't, and another who'd said he was coming had to bail due to some family emergency. I ended up going with just Xta and Dan (my best friend from growing up).
Chef Mehta was sitting at a desk reviewing some kind of paperwork when we came in, and was talking to patrons when we were on our way out, so I got to say hi, express my admiration, and get my copy of his book signed. So, yay. I also mentioned that it seems like I have a taste for the work of chefs who started out working on pastries and desserts, with Elizabeth Falkner being another chef whose style I really enjoy; he seemed to be pleased with the comparison.
I guess I should've gotten Xta to take some photos, but we were too focused on, you know, eating. :-I *nom*
ETA: I should also mention, last night we went to Khyber Pass, a nice little Afghan restaurant on Saint Mark's Place, where I used to eat before going clubbing when I was an intern at IBM Research over summer '98, and I'd just started getting into the goth scene. I was really pleased to find it still there. :-)
Fesenjan is a Persian pomegranate-walnut stew base. It is delicious, and was actually rather easier to make than I expected -- it came out very well on the first attempt. I think the below recipe should make enough for 4-6 servings, depending on how large the servings are.
The traditional accompaniment would be a long grain rice. plymouth doesn't like rice. I thought about using some saffron in the couscous -- it's what would be in the rice -- but I decided that really, the saffron would just be wasted; fesenjan is strongly flavored. I'd rather use saffron in my starchy side dish when the main course I'm serving it with is a bit more subtle. So I just went ahead and hit the couscous with similar flavors to what was in the stew. (See comment below, I ended up changing my mind about that eventually.)
If you wanted to make this vegetarian, you could use seitan (as long as it's not overly salted or soaked with soy sauce) or a very firm tofu, or maybe some sort of firm mushrooms or chunks of eggplant.
Lamb and duck are also traditional proteins for this; with the duck, you want to basically render the fat out of the skin at the beginning, and use that in place of most of the walnut oil that's used here.
Ingredients:
1 to 1+1/4 pound boneless chicken, cut into pieces (1" cubes)
1/2 pound walnuts (whole raw shelled)
roughly 1 cup pomegranate concentrate or molasses
1 medium onion, chopped (any color is fine)
1 large shallot, chopped
walnut oil (just have a bottle around -- the amount used isn't precise)
lemon juice (similar)
1 large sweet pepper (preferably red, but orange or yellow will do), finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1+1/2 cup couscous (the Moroccan kind, not the Israeli kind)
1 teaspoon sumac
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
roughly 3 cups of some kind of lightly savory liquid -- we used water with roughly 2 tsp of white miso dissolved in it, because the only broth we had handy was an entire large box that we didn't feel like opening; you could probably use pom juice as your main liquid, rather than having pom concentrate (I think I'd enhance it with some miso if I was doing that, to get back the savory quality you'd get from a broth)
salt and black pepper to taste
At least a few hours ahead of time: After chopping the chicken, put it in a bowl or tupperware that is just large enough to contain it; in a separate container, mix up a splash of lemon juice and a drizzle of the pom concentrate (about a quarter cup juice, maybe a little less than that of pom) and the sumac, cardamom, and cinnamon. Stir around to coat the chicken, cover, allow to marinate.
Couscous procedure:
In a 1.5 to 2 quart pot over medium heat, sautee the garlic and bell pepper in walnut oil with a little salt (to extract liquid) until the pepper softens and turns slightly translucent.
Mix 2 cups of liquid with a quarter cup each of lemon juice and pom concentrate, add to pot.
Raise heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.
Turn heat off, dump in couscous, cover.
After a few minutes, stir/fluff, re-cover, and allow to finish absorbing any remaining liquid.
Fesenjan procedure:
Toast walnuts at 300 degrees until they start to darken slightly and give off a distinct toasted-nut aroma, about 10 minutes, maybe a little more. (I used the toaster oven for this.) Remove from toaster oven, set aside.
Put a 2 to 3 quart pot over medium-low heat. Heat just enough walnut oil to cover the bottom of the pot when you're moving the pot in a swirling motion or tilting it around (if you stop, it should tend to contract back into a smaller pool that doesn't completely cover the bottom).
Turn heat to medium-high, and add the chicken pieces, using a slotted spoon and attempting to reserve most of the liquid in the bowl the chicken was in.
Sear chicken on outside until it no longer looks raw. Use slotted spoon to transfer chicken to a larger, clean bowl.
Add a little more oil to the pot, and dump in the onion and shallot.
Sautee until translucent. Use slotted spoon to transfer to the bowl with the chicken, attempting to keep as much of the oil as possible in the pot. Turn heat to low.
Add the walnuts, a bit more walnut oil, and any remaining lemon juice, pom concentrate, and broth/liquid. Use a stick blender on low power to pulverize the walnuts; you may need to tilt the pot to make sure the head of the blender can be completely submerged, so it doesn't splash. (Alternately, you can transfer all this stuff to a blender or food processor.) You don't need to render the fesenjan completely smooth like peanut-butter or anything, you just want to break the walnuts down finely enough that the mix begins to thicken and you can't find any significant chunks. Some variations of the recipe call for blending the onion/shallot into the sauce, but we kinda like having identifiable pieces of them left at the end.
Put the chicken and onions back in the pot. Cover, and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.
Serve over couscous, with salt and pepper as desired.
If you happen to be able to acquire Persian ice cream (saffron-rosewater -- quite similar to a traditional flavor of Indian kulfi, which you can get at Bombay Ice Creamery in the mission) and/or faloodeh (very fine noodly things commonly served over shaved ice with a rosewater syrup) for dessert, that would round out the meal nicely.
I was attempting to acquire commercial-size basket filters, to use as liners in my big steamer pan, for esoteric purposes, and the item I thought was those, on Amazon, turns out to be the standard home-machine size, so I have a pack of filters of a variety I have no use for...
I can't seem to find the larger, restaurant-size filter anywhere. I found some listings for "commercial size" filters, but those also appear designed to go in machines that produce twelve cups at a time. Maybe CostCo might have them? (I also found a company called Restaurant Depot, in San Jose, but, like CostCo, they appear to require a membership to shop there.)
I've had two very positive customer service experiences in the last few months, and just wanted to record them for posterity -- so often folks tend to blog their complaints, but not give positive feedback when companies behave well.
Ideal Pet Products makes pet doors. I had one of their sliding glass door inserts years ago, and then used the cut-in doors at my last couple places, and Xta and I recently bought another door insert for the Sky Den. The cats promptly managed to break part of the door; I'm not sure if it was a manufacturing flaw in that particular unit, or if they were being particularly rambunctious, but they'd never managed to do that before. In any case, I was able to email Ideal, and they promptly offered to send a replacement part. Fixing it was as easy as undoing a few screws, putting in the new part, and screwing it back together.
Zyliss makes a variety of kitchen products, including rotary cheese graters. I bought this product because it has a wider barrel, which is good for coarsely grating medium-firm cheeses like cheddar and gruyere, which don't do so well in the narrow-barrel grater I use for hard cheeses. A couple days ago the handle on the coarse drum shattered. Although Amazon said their returns policy only covers things for 30 days, when I contacted Zyliss USA, they offered to send a replacement coarse drum, free of charge. So, yay.
I have to admit, I wouldn't actually buy this particular product again if I had it to do over; I like the larger drum, but the handle design is a little awkward, and you can tell it's a bit flimsy when you handle it. The problem is that it attaches at the rim, rather than having the drum closed on one side, or having struts across it, to allow the handle to attach at the center. Their smaller grater has the handle screw into a thread at the center, which works really well (and makes the disassembled pieces easier to clean). Still, given that I sank some money into it, I appreciate that Zyliss is willing to make some effort to maintain/service their product. If it breaks again, though, I'll probably just buy something else.
Xta and I and our friend dragondawn420 went to see the Tut exhibit, and went to dinner at the restaurant in the Cal Academy. It's very good. We'll have to go back some time...
Hemingway Daiquiri: white rum, grapefruit, maraschino Margarita Ahumada: mezcal, lime, black sea salt Viognier, Cold Heaven "Sanford & Benedict Vineyard", Santa Barbara County, California, 2007
Country style pork terrine, house made pickles, mostarda di frutta, frisée. The pickles included cucumber, onion, and an amazing pickled carrot; I don't know exactly what they'd pickled it in. I think maybe they had some fennel seed in there, or something. Mostarda di frutta is kind of an Italian version of chutney -- a savory preserve, heavy on the mustard seed. They'd done it with some very good apricots. The whole appetizer was great with the fresh crusty bread. (We shared this as an appetizer.)
Roasted eggplant ravioli with cherry tomatoes, black olives, garlic, basil. Christa had them hold the tomatoes. There was a lot of garlic, roasted til it was basically spreadable. Topped with some sauteed spinach. (I think it was the same spinach as appears listed in the "Sides" part of the menu: local spinach, harissa, golden raisins, pine nuts.)
Bullfeathers Farms quail, caramelized peaches, purslane, pancetta, balsamic reduction. I think this was the best use of purslane I've ever run into. I could've wished the quail was a little bigger, but overall, superb. The peaches appeared to have been coated in a light syrup and then torched -- browned on the outside, but basically still raw on the inside.
Grilled American "Kobe" bavette steak, watercress, charmoula vinaigrette. DD had this; I got a taste of it, and was really impressed with their chermoula. You could definitely taste the pickled lemon in it.
Combier Crème Brûlée, vanilla marmalade sandwich cookies. Sort of a "dreamsicle custard". The cookies were shortbready, and had an intense vanilla aroma. The marmalade between them was more like bits of candied orange peel than marmalade -- no excess liquid. But not overly sweet, very orange-y.
Roast Peach and Summer Berry Parfait, with crème fraîche custard, buttermilk biscuit, praline streusel. Xta had this with a glass of Quady Red Electra. We've been fans of the Quady for a long time. I think jencallisto introduced us to their Elysium. Red Electra is what grape soda aspires to be -- very distinctly grape-y (purple flavor!), with a light, pleasant sparkle, and hints of other summer fruit flavors (especially peach and blackberry). It was a perfect complement to the parfait.
Devil's Chocolate Cake, with fleur de lait ice cream, malted powder, crispy wafer. I'm not sure I ever tried (or even saw) the wafer, so I don't know what was in that. Fleur de lait is an extremely simple ice cream, basically just milk, cream, sugar, a pinch of salt, and a bit of starch for thickening (usually cornstarch). There were actually two kinds of malt powder (chocolate and vanilla) sprinkled in arcs around the edge of the plate. The cake was incredibly dense and fudgey, and around 20-25% of the entire thickness was ganache frosting (thick layer on top, and a thinner layer halfway down). The cake was so rich that DD couldn't finish it, even with assistance. (I was pretty full after my own dessert, so I only had a couple bites.)
Today we're doing more unpacking. Earlier I sorted and arranged a bunch of random cables (power, networking, A/V, etc). And supposedly people who contacted me through Craigslist are going to take away my old bureau, and the empty boxes, later today...
A number of the steps in here can proceed in parallel.
Preheat oven to 375F.
Noodles: Cook a standard 8 oz lasagna noodle box, according to its directions.
Cheese Filling: Mix 16 oz of ricotta, about two-thirds of a 7oz package of pesto, and a few tablespoons of alfredo sauce. Add chopped fresh herbs. (We had parseley around, but extra basil, or whatever else you like, or even some dry herbs, would be fine. The thing is that you can't get all your herbage from the pesto sauce, because if you do, it'll be too much oil.)
Meaty filling: Dice 8 oz fairly fatty sausage (we were using Moroccan merguez), or bacon, or other meat that will render a decent bit of fat. Dice one medium yellow or white onion. Mince about 4 cloves of garlic (adjust to taste). Finely chop about 4-6 oz of greens (we used about eight medium leaves of dinosaur kale, b/c that's what we had handy). Cook the sausage in a pan over medium-high heat until it's lightly browned, and oil has rendered. Scoop it out with a slotted spoon, allow to rest in a bowl. Add onion to pan, cook for a few minutes until it starts to turn transluscent. Add garlic and greens to pan. Cook until the greens are cooked (time depends on the type of greens). Dump the veggies in with the meat, mix. (If the amount of oil is such that there is still actual liquid in the bottom of the pan, you may want to pull the veggies out with the slotted spoon, so you don't end up with oil dripping out of your lasagna.)
Zucchini filling: Chop two medium-to-large zucchinis (the ones we use probably weighed almost a pound, taken together) into ~1/4 inch thick rounds. Lightly brush a half-sheet pan with olive oil, put down a layer of zuke rounds, brush with oil, put down another layer, brush with oil. (If you lack for a brush, you can use a paper towel, or just your fingers dipped in a dish of oil. It washes off!) Bake uncovered for about fifteen minutes. You want to see sizzling on the surface, as it gives up some moisture. Don't cook it to mush, but you want it a bit softened, since it won't get much softer during the final bake. The layers of zuchini in the lasagna shouldn't need to have the discs overlapping; if you end up with extra, just save it to reheat as a side dish with some other meal.
Final topping: 8 oz of mozzarella, coarsely shredded.
Put a layer of noodles in the bottom of your baking dish (use a 9x13 if you have it; we didn't so we ended up using a 2qt, about 8x12, and then making a second smaller dish), then about 40% of the cheese mixture, then half the meat mix, then 40% of the zukes, then more noodles, another 40% of the cheese, half the meat, 40% of the zukes, more noodles, remaining 20% of cheese, arrange last 20% of zukes in a grid to define serving pieces, top with mozzarella. Bake for 30-35 min, until mozzarella gets bubbly and starts to brown. Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes.
Makes about six to ten servings, depending on how hungry you are.
My Capstone team was voted (by our fellow students) as one of the three teams to present tomorrow night at the Venture Showcase.
Two more days, and two more presentations. Tomorrow morning is Capital Markets, and tomorrow evening gets a repeat of today's presentation, and then there's the human-factors class on Sunday where the chances of anyone paying attention are close to nil.* And then I'm done.
* If any of the professors or TAs are reading this -- I'll try, really, but you know it's true! Also, hi!
Triptych is very good. And has very friendly staff.
hot cider with soju and cinammon
local biodynamic savignon blanc (from Mendocino County, not sure what label, and the wine list on the website appears to be out of date)
arugala, red beets, pink grapefruit, goat cheese baked wrapped in leek leaves, and meyer lemon vinaigrette
butternut squash ravioli (done with the filling slightly sweet -- kind of like Afghan kadu) with wilted spinach, sage, browned butter, and (I think?) a touch of aged balsamic vinegar
osso buco -- braised pork over polenta, with a strip of crispy bacon and gremolata (finely minced garlic, parsley, lemon zest, and a bit of anchovy paste)
pear tart, Vouvray demisec (very strong pear and honey notes; forgot the label)
So, we redid the macaroni and cheese recipe, to use up the other half of the bag of macaroni. We used nearly a pound of cheese total -- about eight ounces of mild cheddar, four of asiago fresco, and two of a really strong aged asiago. We reduced the liquid from 3c to just a smidge over 2c -- about 1.75 skim milk and a little over 0.25 half-and-half -- which resulted in macaroni held together as a near-solid caserrole, with noticably stringy cheese, rather than basically being macaroni in a thick cheese sauce. I also tried mitrian's suggestion of adding a tiny amount of baking soda to the roux; I used a quarter teaspoon. It did not affect the flavor, and while I don't know for certain whether the low-moisture sauce would've caused the egg and cheese proteins to seize out into curds, upon reheating, I do know that this batch does not do that. So, yay for that. (We also used four strips of bacon, instead of a sausage; the bacon provided enough rendered fat that I was able to cut the 3 Tbs of butter roughly in half. And I added some sage, along with the other spices.) Personally, I thought this was basically perfect -- best mac'n'cheese I've ever had.
However, Christa still thinks the cheese should be even more stringy. I am uncertain as to how this could be achieved without making the resulting casserole "good for one night only". With most cheeses (and especially cheddar and any of the aged cheeses we usually use for their strong flavors -- cono beemster, piave vechhio, asiago, etc) melting them without emulsifying agents (like the roux and egg in the recipe) results in protein curds, sitting in a puddle of oil. That is not tasty, IMHO. I suppose I could just go to cheeses that reheat better, like mozzarella, provolone, and maybe a young-ish fontina, emmenthal, or gruyere. That's the choice you often see made for baked ziti or lasagna. But is there some way to get a really stringy, cheesy result, without sacrificing the aged hard-cheese flavor?
This is a roughly 6-8 serving casserole; you'll need a round casserole dish, preferably 2.5 quart (you can kinda get away with a 2 qt, but the sauce will be right up the brim), made of some slow-heating material (pyrex, ceramic, stoneware, corningware -- not metal).
This is more of a narrative than a "recipe". Read through the whole thing and figure out exactly what your process is going to be, before starting; there are a bunch of finicky parts of the process (making roux, tempering an egg) that are time-sensitive, so you don't want to get caught pondering ratios when you're in the middle of doing those steps. (Note that where you have a prepped ingredient -- diced onion, shredded cheese, etc -- you can get somebody else to do that for you while you're cooking, or you can do it before you turn on the heat.)
I had this for lunch earlier today. It's almost as good zapped in the microwave (2.5 minutes uncovered on 60%, so the steam doesn't waterlog the breadcrumbs, but the heat doesn't cause the edges to splatter before the inside is warm) as it was fresh. The sauce seems to be better about not separating than the typical cheese sauce. (The last time I attempted to reheat a fettucini alfredo, it didn't work very well -- I ended up with fettucini with little sticky cheese curds adhering to it, in a puddle of oil. Still edible, but not all that appetizing.)
So, my cousin-once-removed (who blogs at writerway_feed) is in town for MacWorld, along with her boyfriend Tom (whom I already knew somewhat because he used to work at The Other Change of Hobbit in Berkeley, but now he lives up in the Seattle area), and we made plans to get together for dinner. I sorted through the OpenTable Bonus Point restaurants in the neighborhood of her hotel, offered a few suggestions, and she picked out Orson, the new bistro from chef Elizabeth Falkner of Citizen Cake, which has been my favorite pre-matinee-opera brunch spot for years.
Orson is pricey, but oh-so-tasty. Stuff we ordered included:
Obama Rocks (basically a non-minty mojito -- rum, lime, cane syrup, on the rocks)
Ginger Royale (kind of like a Kir Royale, but with a ginger liquer instead of kir: sparkling wine, Canton Ginger Liquer, and a "ginger javelin", i.e. a large piece of crystallized ginger on a shiny skewer)
House made mozzarella with chiffonaded basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, with sourdough toast
(comped) french fries cooked in duck fat, served with brown-butter bérnaise dipping sauce
Explosive Caesar Salad: heart of romaine, parmesan pop rocks, parm/garlic/black-sesame ultra-thin crunchy toasts, a smear of olive-oil/lemon aioli (with something sweet in it, which was an interesting highlight) on the plate underneath the bed of lettuce, and dressing (I think it included anchovy paste, black pepper, and lemon -- the basic caesar salad flavors) inside magic bubbles (which I assume were made using some variation of spherification -- though the surface seemed more like natural eggwhite than like algin)
Lemongrass shrimp bisque (tomato-y, looked to have some rice in it; my cousin had this, I didn't really try to analyze it much)
Pizza with poached egg, prosciutto, chevre, and pesto (I think basil and walnut?)
Scallops with mushrooms, sweet potatos, and dashi "tears" (another molecular gastronomy creation)
Grilled flank steak on a bed of eggplant, with ancho-cumin "paint" coating the plate, and a "salsa verde" (basically just chopped herbs in a bit of oil) on top
"a walk through the forest" -- crepes layered with persimmon jam, hempseed ice cream, butterscotch creme, poached persimmon cubes
"the clock past midnight" -- pumpkin custard, brown butter streusel, root-beer/maple syrup
"meets the eye" -- olive oil ice cream between milk chocolate caramel wafers, with cocoa crunch pop rocks
"by the open fire" -- oven roasted chocolate cake, honey-orange glazed chestnuts, burnt-orange ice cream (all of this had a smoky warmth to it)
I was commenting to our waiter, early in the meal, that I'd been an admirer of the chef for years, and he pointed out that she was having dinner with her accountant at the table across from us. (I probably would've noticed -- she stands out -- except I was seated facing away from her.) So I bought a copy of Demolition Desserts to get signed. Just before we got dessert, she finished up, and stopped to say hello, and we chatted a bit. I mentioned something about a restaurant in Phoenix, and she told me that I absolutely have to try Pizzeria Bianco, which has apparently become a destination for chefs. And we discussed wedding cakes. (I want her to make the cake for mine and Xta's wedding.) She was describing the giant wedding cake she brought to city hall. Hopefully we'll get gay marriage legal again soon, so she can do that again. :-)
Anyways, I got to meet one of the chefs I most admire, and I have a copy of Demolition Desserts with a personally-addressed signature and note inside the cover. Yay! :-)
Immediately after you remove the frittata from the oven, the handle of the pan is hot. You cannot serve the first half, take off the oven mitt to do something else, and then come back to get the other half by picking up the pan with a bare hand. If you do, you will end up typing one-handed while your other hand is wrapped in an ice pack. KTHXBAI.
The Bonesetter's Daughter is fantastic. If you can get tickets, go see it. The music draws on lots of traditional and modern Chinese techniques and instruments, as well as some stylistic elements that actually reminded me of Philip Glass (complex sequences of quick notes, repeated in slight variations, creating an emotionally evocative wash of sound). Amy Tan did a great job stripping her novel down to its most essential elements. And a couple of the performers are almost superhuman -- the woman who has the smallest of the three main female roles is actually probably the most impressive vocalist; it'd be hard to class her as an alto or soprano, because she can range from a low-alto note to a high-soprano one in the course of a couple of measures of music.
Also, recipe! I made this last week. Serves 2, with a bit of couscous leftover for a snack or small dinner some other time. You can extend a small serving of the couscous with some steamed or sauteed veggies -- summer squash, onion, greens, etc.
Acquire three globe artichokes or "eurochokes" (the version that has a longer stem and less-thorny leaves). Slice the top inch or so off of the top, and trim the bottom inch off the stem (it'll likely be dried out and fibrous, though the rest of the stem is edible and almost as good as the heart). Put a steamer in a large pot, and enough water to fill to just barely below the steamer. Place artichokes stem-up in the steamer, and steam over medium-high heat for 45 minutes, or until the stem is tender (doesn't noticably resist having a fork poked into it).
Dipping sauce for artichokes, which can be made shortly before they come out: Put two tablespoons of butter, a tablespoon of mustard, and three tablespoons of lemon juice (all approximate) in a small bowl or cup (something you can dip in). Microwave for 15 seconds. Stir to combine. Add taragon, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper, to taste. This should make enough for both 'chokes. If you have a little extra, it's good on the couscous too...
While the artichokes are steaming, get two or three handfuls of pine nuts and spread them out on a piece of aluminum foil. Put them in a toaster oven at 250°F until they start to brown and emit a pleasantly toasty aroma. I never really time this, so I'm not sure how long it takes. Maybe seven minutes? Don't let them get too dark -- when you take them out, the residual heat in them will finish toasting them quite adequately.
Melt a tablespoon of butter in the bottom of a medium pot, and saute a minced clove of garlic for a minute or so; don't turn the heat up too high, you don't want to brown/burn the butter. Add 1.25 cups of water with 0.25 cups of lemon juice, bring to a boil. Add 1 cup of couscous, the toasted pine nuts, and fine-ground black pepper, salt, tarragon, stir to mix, and let stand for at least ten minutes. When serving, add some grated parmesan (or even better, a grated aged gouda -- the aged-five-years stuff that's a rich caramel color is fantastic in this).
ETA: If you want to complexify the herbal notes, when we did the couscous with sauteed veggies, I added marjoram and sage to the veggies while cooking, and that came out nicely. They'd probably be good in the couscous and the dipping sauce as well.
A friend of mine, a teacher at the public school in one of the poorest parts of SF, has a project up on Donors Choose.
I generally think we ought to just fund our schools enough that teachers would have enough budget to work with to engage in interesting little projects like this, but I guess that's because I'm a terrible tax-and-spend liberal. :-P
In any case, in the absence of Prop13 reform, Donors Choose helps connect folks willing to drop $5 or $10 on a worthy cause with people who are devoting their lives to providing a decent start in life to people coming out of very difficult circumstances.
Christa just brought home some colored sugar (blue, what else?) which she got because, hey, blue sugar, for topping desserts with!
I was glancing at the ingredients: sugar, blue vegetable coloring, and carnauba wax.
"What the hell is carnauba wax?" I wondered aloud. "Wax from a carnauba?"
Well, in fact, yes, it is. There's a palm called the carnauba palm. You get its wax by beating its leaves, and then processing the little flakes of wax that fall off of them. Yay for natural products.
But, get this: Not only is it useful for giving a shiny finish to food products (candy corn, gumballs, stiff frostings), it's also a common ingredient of industrial polishes (for cars, floors, furniture).
And also my excuse for spending an hour or so making it, rather than writing.
Recipe derived from a '00s edition of the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook.
Filling:
5 cups of sliced fruit: apples, pears, peaches, apricots, whatever. If using any type of frozen fruit, thaw, but don't drain. I basically always get my "5 cups" by taking my 4 cup pyrex measuring cup, and filling to the brim; I figure there's about one cup above the 4-cup line.
zest from two small lemons or one medium-to-large one; orange zest would work fine too; this is optional, but tasty
For a sweet fruit, like strawberries or stone fruits, 2 to 3 tablespoons granulated sugar. If using blueberries, increase to 4 tablespoons. For tart cherries, increase to 1/2 cup. For rhubarb, increase to 3/4 cup.
Mix 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour, and a very small amount of salt (maybe 1/8 tsp?) with the sugar, prior to tossing it with the fruit. You can substitute ~1.5 tbsp of tapioca powder, if you're trying to stay gluten free, or if you just like the glossy appearance and the texture that tapioca gets you (which I do).
Combine filling ingredients in a shallow two-quart baking dish.
Pre-heat oven to 375°F.
Edited to add, in late October: I've been making this about every couple of weeks since May, with various fruit, and I eventually decided that it's much tastier when you up the amount of topping by 50%, for the stated amount of fruit. You can try it the way it's listed below, but I recommend going with 1.5 times more of everything... Oh, and I think the best crisp I made was the apple-peach-strawberry crisp, with 4x fruit (20 cups) and 6x the original topping amount. Had to spread it out across five different baking dishes. I took that to a big party held for the first presidential debate, along with yogurt for topping (instead of ice cream; it's just as tasty -- I actually like it better, b/c of how the tartness contrasts with the sweetness -- and much better for you).
Topping:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup (packed, not loose) brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (or gluten-free oat flour, if that's how you roll)
spices, to taste; the recipe suggested 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, which is way too little spice; I probably used about 1.5 teaspoons of spice total, mixing allspice, cardamom cinnamon, clove, ginger, and nutmeg; for some fruits, tossing the fruit with a bit of vanilla extract before adding the sugar (and flour, if appropiate) might work well
1/4 cup butter (half a standard stick) cut into small cubes (I cut it 4x4x4, and that worked well)
If you buy unsalted butter, add another pinch of salt (1/8 tsp?) into the topping
1/4 cup chopped nuts and/or shredded unsweetened fresh coconut
In a large bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, flour, spices. Add butter and mix til you get coarse crumbs. The easiest way to get the right texture for crisp topping is to clean and dry your hands, and then pinch bits of the dry mix around the cubes of butter. Keep doing that as long as you can see identifiable bits of butter, then add the nuts and/or coconut and squish everything around a bit more. It helps if you have a friend who can scrape topping bits off your fingers with the back of a knife, when you're done.
Sprinkle topping evenly over filling.
Place baking dish in oven. I suggest putting the baking dish on top of another dish (say, a cookie sheet), so that if fruit juices bubble over they won't make a mess in the bottom of your oven.
Bake for 30-35 minutes (40 if fruit started out frozen), til topping begins to brown.
What I actually made last night was strawberry-rhubarb -- two pints of strawberries from the farmshare and three stalks of rhubarb from a friend's garden. Tasty for breakfast, topped with yogurt.
Tinderbox is run by a friend of a Presidian, and is offering "SLOW" (seasonal, local, organic, whole) produce and meats. The menu looks very good. And they have an extensive bonus point schedule on OpenTable.com. (The 1000-point reservation basically means you effectively get a $10 discount -- every 2000 points gets you a $20 gift certificate good at any OT restaurant.) I will have to find a reason to get over there, some time in the next few months...
I'm out for YearlyKos, staying with my brother G~, and since he's saving me a bunch of money on hotel costs, I figured I'd buy him a nice dinner. This is a fusion place owned by the same managing group as Asia de Cuba, which has won a bunch of awards in SF... I found it on OpenTable.com, looking for something nice close to where we were going to see a taping of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!, the NPR quiz show... I opened up the info on a few places, and noted the connection to someplace I knew about from SF, and figured, why not?
We were a party of five, and we basically got five "small" dishes (three appetizers, a salad, and a side), and then split three desserts. Xta and I also split some drinks. They serve everything with the assumption that you're planning to do the "family style" thing; each appetizer is the size of a small meal, and entrees are enough for at least two people.
* Honey Martini -- not actually a martini (why do they call anything in a conical glass a martini? a martini is gin and vermouth, dammit!), actually rum, honey, and soda; very simple, very tasty.
* "East Meets West" -- three kinds of rum (10 Cane, Meyer's Original Dark, and some flavored rum that was supposed to be part of the "East" concept?), sake, fresh grapefruit juice. The fresh grapefruit juice seemed to make this a bit bitter, until I had a sip with some spice on my palate already from the food; then it suddenly became absolutely delicious.
* spicy beef & scallion dumplings, with soy ginger sauce -- also with some salad (greens, some kind of sprouts, shredded carrot and red bell pepper). I think this was my favorite; dumplings are pretty basic Chinese, but these were just better, and something in the style of the sauce and the side salad was more Japanese.
* curried chicken satay, with chilled sesame noodles & crushed chili ponzu -- a good satay, with some nice cold noodle salad; nothing terribly earth-shattering, but nice.
* thai shrimp cakes, with cactus-mango salsa & black molé vinaigrette -- really interesting; I'm not a huge shrimp fan, but this was definitely tasty, and the sauces were novel.
* baby lettuce salad with grilled hearts of palm, marinated artichokes, warm tempura goat cheese & chinese apple vinaigrette -- excellent salad; a bit similar in concept to the salads at Bodeguita del Medio (which has a crusted goat-cheese salad, and a hearts-of-palm salad), but of course with a different (and very interesting) dressing.
* lobster mashed potatoes -- not actually very much lobster, but it didn't take much to impart a richness of texture and flavor... This was particularly good with the sauce from the dumplings (once the dumplings themselves were gone).
* Sauteed bananas in caramel sauce, in a caramel box. (It's interesting how certain concepts seem to work across different "fusion restaurant" concepts -- this dessert is very similar to Bodeguita's "Havana Bananas", and equally delicious. More emphasis on the caramel, rather than having nuts...)
* Chilled passionfruit souffle -- this was really kinda disappointing; it was just sort of vaguely fruity. I think it would've worked better if they'd just served it as a souffle (hot), rather than turning it into something closer to a mousse by chilling it.
* Chocolate mousse (dark on top, white on the bottom) with chocolate cookie and raspberry sauce -- excellent, if not particularly original. The raspberry sauce was particularly good.
* Chateau de Segur Sauternes -- very good, if heavy/syrupy for a sauternes. Leaves a nice butterscotchy aftertaste, and an almost buttery tactile impression (richness, not grease). Has some subtle fruity notes (maybe apricot? peach? pear?) beyond the basic sauternes light grapiness.
It came out to being quite reasonably priced, for the quality of what we got. But that will be all the fancy food I get on this trip. The rest will be out of the kitchen at the house, or cheap counters, or free convention-related food (I think Media Matters may be giving me snacks tomorrow evening). I really am trying to cut back on spending, but, eh, I wanted to treat G~ to something good.
The WaitWait taping was hysterical -- for whatever reason, this episode descended into the gutter early and never really found its way back out. I'm too tired to do it justice, just give a listen this Saturday.
The magazine I used to work for is having its semiannual PBS-style fund drive... If you like speculative fiction, consider that four of the last five Campbell winners (that's the award for best new writer) were published in SH before winning the award: Jo Walton '02, Jay Lake '04, Elizabeth Bear '05, John Scalzi '06.
SH is a valuable resource for new writers, and is helping to shape the future of the genre. And we give it away for free, with archives back to our very first issue! Please consider chipping in a few dollars to help keep the site going. $5, or $10, or $20 isn't much in exchange for Jay Lake and his TOOOOOOAST!
I haven't posted a recipe for quite a while... I thought I'd toss this one up, since it's incredibly easy, and I actually make it fairly often, dealing with the flood of Xta-toxic tomatos that we get from the farmshare during the summer... It's chunky, and very tomato-y.
In an oven-safe pyrex ramekin or one-cup measuring cup, combine:
about 1/2 to 2/3 cup chopped tomato -- You get this from one medium to large tomato, or two to three smallish romas. Recently I've done this with halved sungold cherry tomatos, which were much tastier as sauce than I expected. One thing that helps prevent the sauce from being too soupy, but that I frequently don't bother to do because I am lazy, is to scoop out the watery seed/pulp stuff and only keep the fleshy parts of the tomato. You can also get lucky and end up with a nice orangey heirloom tomato with yellow and red streaks that happens to have almost none of the watery pulp; that's what I did last night. Wish I knew what that varietal's name was.
a drizzle of olive oil -- Maybe 2 tablespoons? I never measure; it's just enough to coat the ingredients.
a pinch of salt
herbs and spices -- I've had fresh parsley and basil available recently, but dried stuff is fine; they'll infuse the oil. I usually use basil, garlic, parsley, oregano, and a little crushed red pepper. Every now and then I forget that you have to be careful with the crushed red pepper in this, because the heat will be about two or three times as strong after the capsaicin diffuses into the olive oil as it is if you just sprinkle the pepper on something after it's already cooked.
Stick the cooking dish in the toaster oven (if you have a rack that can be turned, you may want to put it in the position that puts the dish farther from the top heating element) on 275F for at least 25 minutes. 45 minutes is actually better, and you could probably roast it even longer than that without doing it any harm, but I get impatient and start cooking the pasta too early. The important thing is that you should give it some time with the liquid in the bottom bubbling; you don't want it to come to a rolling boil, but you do want a fair bit of the water to get taken out as steam, to concentrate the flavor.
Dump the dish of sauce over a large bowl of pasta. Add grated parmesan. You can also add other accoutrements, as desired -- I love capers and kalamata olives. Or try wrapping some pinenuts in a foil packet and tossing them into the toaster with the sauce for the last ~12 minutes.
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