Tuesday, May 29, 2007

squeaky cheese

Last weekend, I went to a wedding in Madison, Wisconsin. The wedding was nice and touching and all that, but for me, the highlight was the cheese curds at the reception.

I had been briefed beforehand about the curds and how they would squeak when chewed, but only if they were very fresh and served at the right temperature. So, as soon as the ceremony was over, I made a beeline for the cheese table. Apparently the curds were too cold at first, so I had to wait a good fifteen minutes for my first squeaking experience, but sure enough, the third (and fourth, and fifth, and sixth...) curds that I ate produced clearly audible squeaking noises. Fun!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

words of a queen

For some reason, I've always been fascinated by European royalty. I've read all about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry VIII and his wives, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, William the Conqueror, and many others.

Recently, I've been on a Queen Elizabeth kick. Rosalind Miles' I, Elizabeth is a fairly easy read, but I don't think it does justice to the real Queen Elizabeth.

Anyway, I recently came across this Queen Elizabeth quote in a recent SF Chronicle article, which I liked very much:

Queen Elizabeth I [...] in her famed speech to English troops before their showdown with the Spanish armada declared: "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England, too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm."

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Jean Georges

A more detailed account:

Jean Georges offers a six-course tasting menu but I didn't like some of the selections, so I chose to have the four-course prix fixe instead.

My father did order the tasting menu, and most enjoyed the caviar and the lobster:



As for me, I especially liked the the amuse (especially the salmon and ikura) and my appetizer (a shrimp and mushroom dish covered in yuzu foam):



However, I was most impressed by the desserts. There were four options on the menu, each comprised of four small dishes, representing a theme:


My father ordered Spring, my mother ordered Rhubarb, my sister ordered Chocolate, and I ordered Citrus, so we were able to investigate the full array.

SpringRhubarb
 
ChocolateCitrus


Finally, we ended the evening with a variety of mignardises, of which I most enjoyed the rhubarb and mandarin orange jellies:

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

new record

Same car, same gas station, new all-time high this morning, of $49.16. I tried to top off to $50 just for kicks, but it wasn't happening. I guess I should get used to this.

Monday, May 21, 2007

not quite a vacation

Last week, I didn't go to work. I went to a wedding in Minnesota, my sister's graduation in New York, and my brother's graduation in Baltimore.

Consequently, I spent 12 hours on airplanes and 3.5 hours driving from New York to Baltimore. I spent 6 hours sitting outside listening to various people muse about educational experiences and how to be successful. After my brother's graduation, my mom and I spent three days packing his stuff and shipping it back to California. Normally we'd let him take care of most of it, but he'd managed to injure his knee playing basketball and isn't allowed to drive or lift heavy objects until he has his MRI. By yesterday, my back and shoulders and arms were sore enough that claiming my baggage at the airport was a pain. Less painful but more visible are the bruises on my legs from encounters with various box corners.

Today, I went back to work and my coworkers asked me, "How was your vacation?", which struck me as at least a little bit amusing.

On the bright side, I had all kinds of amazing food during the trip. There wasn't much upscale cuisine in rural Minnesota, but I did have four kinds of yummy wedding cake (baked by the bride herself) followed by a decadent raspberry coffee cake and breakfast croissant the next morning, at the Hillcrest Hideaway B&B.

In New York, I enjoyed both Jean Georges (very good, but the chef may be overly fond of foams, and of pouring sauces tableside) and the new branch of Sushi of Gari (the salmon and tomato was especially delicious).

In Baltimore, I insisted on going to a traditional crab house, so my brother took us to Obrycki's, where we were lucky enough to have two dozen delicious extra-large crabs (dessert was a mistake, though). Then, the next night, my sister took us to her favorite Baltimore restaurant, Brasserie Tatin, which we liked so much that we returned again for Sunday brunch.

Finally, my parents insisted that we drive the 45 minutes to Annapolis to eat at O'Learys, where they had gone once before, on the recommendation of a friendly shopkeeper. It was well worth it; the food was amazing (huge crab cakes, excellent lobster risotto, very creative execution of key lime pie), and the service was flawless.

Unfortunately, between the wedding-related events and the graduations and the moving and the eating, I didn't have time to get any cardio exercise at all. It's going to be a brutal week.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

everything online

Sometimes it's a little scary how much information is online.

Recently I discovered PropertyShark, which lets registered users enter addresses to look up property owners, sale prices, tax information, title documents, and sometimes even loan details.

That's even more data than Zillow, which just provides the sales and tax information, as well as a ballpark valuation.

On the rental side, Rentometer aggregates rental prices by location to determine roughly what constitutes a reasonable rate for a particular address.

More depressingly, there's also family watchdog, which maps registered sex offenders near a given address.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

upset!

The Warriors played the Mavericks tonight in Game 6 of the first round of the playoffs. Going into the game, the eighth-seeded Warriors were leading the first-seeded Mavericks 3-2 in the series, and they won big tonight, 111-86, to close out probably the biggest upset in NBA history. It was, in fact, a historic upset; no eighth seed has ever upset a first seed in a seven-game series before.

I'm really glad that the entire country got to see this team play on national television. Things were looking pretty bleak for the Warriors back in early February; we were in Vegas around then and the line for the Warriors to win the championship was something like 80:1. The Indiana trade had just happened, but Harrington and Jackson hadn't quite adjusted to Nelson's system yet, and then Davis and Richardson got injured, and it seemed like the Warriors were in for yet another losing season. Then, everyone got healthy, the new lineup started to click, and the team started to play the way they're playing now; high-octane small ball, fueled with almost too much emotion (those technicals could have been much worse), with players hustling for every loose ball, and scoring tons of points on crazy fast breaks. They ended on a 9-of-10 tear to wrench the final playoff spot away from the Clippers on the last day of the season.

It's funny, when the Warriors started their first playoff series in thirteen years, the commentators were pronouncing their names wrong (it's Mick-KAEL, and BEE-drinzh), and calling them "pesky" on defense. But, they're a fun team to watch, and I think a lot of basketball fans all over the country were won over by the Warriors' exciting style of play (they're like, the poor man's Suns!), plus the whole Cinderella-underdog setup. Honestly, sometimes when they go on the fast break, it's so pretty I want to laugh and cry at the same time. Then again, sometimes they try to get too clever and turn the ball over instead. Didn't happen tonight.

A lot has been said during this series about the fans at the Oakland Coliseum, or as they call it now, Oracle Arena. I only went to one or two games back in the 80's and 90's, so I don't remember what the atmosphere was like then, but in the last six years since I moved back to the Bay Area, I've been going to a couple of games a year. Up until recently, I never thought the Warriors' home court advantage was all that great. In fact, I distinctly remember several games when the fans booed the Warriors, and started streaming out towards the parking lot during the third quarter. I guess that's what happens when the home team sucks for years on end.

Well, that's definitely changed by now; I think things started to turn around when Baron Davis joined the team. During the last two years, Oakland fans have showed a lot of support, even while the team missed the playoffs last year and barely made it this year. And now, with the team playing so well in the playoffs against the top-ranked Mavericks, the fans have upped the noise to another level. My roommate and her boyfriend have season tickets, and they've seen several good wins at the Arena this season, but it wasn't until after Game 4 (an instant classic, I think) that they decided to bring earplugs to future games. Apparently the crowd noise now borders on painful. Those of us who were watching from home today were amused when TNT kept adjusting the sound settings on the broadcast every time the Warriors made a shot. That was some pretty amazing fan support, right there.

I can't talk about sports these days without mentioning the Sports Guy, so here are some of his words on the subject, from earlier today:

These things don't happen at Warriors and Knicks games because they're the only two places left with old-school fans, fans who have been coming to games for 30-40 years, fans of all colors, fans who genuinely understand basketball and every nuance that comes with it. They don't need a giant video screen to help them out; hell, they don't want the giant video screen to help them out. These are the fans who recognize a beautiful pass as it's happening, not after it happens, simply because they love basketball and see the same angles players see. These are the fans who instinctively understand stuff like, "Mickael Pietrus just threw down a ridiculous putback; I'm going to stand and keep cheering for an extra 30 seconds because he's a young kid and we need to keep pumping him up so he'll do it again."

[...]

As for Warriors fans, it's a little more simple: They play in Oakland and have the most eclectic mix of fans in the league, so their home games have a different feel, almost like an upscale version of Rucker Park. Earlier this year, my wife and I were trying to determine whether we wanted to leave L.A. and live somewhere else for a few years (just to mix things up), and during the course of the discussions, she brought up the Bay Area. Well, you know why I couldn't live there? Because of the Warriors. If we moved there, I'd end up purchasing Warriors season tickets; inevitably I would be compromised by those unique crowds, placing me in a precarious sports bigamy predicament since I'm utterly and completely disgusted by the Celtics' front office and ownership right now. It would be like a guy who hates his wife hiring the hottest 20-year-old Danish au pair on the planet. Just a bad idea all the way around.

What does this have to do with Game 6 of the Warriors-Mavs series tonight? In the words of Russell Hammond, everything. I don't believe the 2007 Dallas Mavericks have the collective heart to prevail in Oakland, not with the Warriors' fans smelling blood and providing one of the all-time electric/rabid/emotional/crazed atmospheres in recent sports history. As good as they were in Game 3 and Game 4, the fans will be better tonight. They will rise to the occasion. They will. I am convinced. They have been waiting for a night like this for 30 long years. Literally.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

yay Amazon!

A few weeks ago, I ordered a set of 100 slim-line jewel cases from Amazon, to go with my 100 count spindle of blank DVDs. It came within a few days, as always, but I soon discovered that out of the 100 cases, 14 were cracked. I called up Amazon's customer support line (1-800-201-7575, not listed on their website but easy to find using Google) and the customer support representative fixed everything. First, she put in a replacement order, which would arrive within a week. Then, she walked me through the steps to get a label for free shipping on the return package. I had the new tracking number within a day. Today I received the new cases, wrapped in two extra layers of padding, and indeed, it appears that all 100 are intact.

This is why I buy things from Amazon. I hardly ever have problems, but when I do, they are resolved quickly and effortlessly. When I used to live in Central Square in Cambridge (7 years ago!) I once ordered some books from Amazon which were supposed to have been delivered to my doorstep, but I never got them. Someone probably saw a package and swiped it (I'm sure he/she was thrilled to discover textbooks inside). Anyway, I called up Amazon, and within a day they had sent out a replacement package.

Recently, I've taken to buying things like refrigerator water filters and vacuum cleaner supplies from Amazon. It's just not worth it to research and call up multiple stores looking for the exact part that I need, and then have to drive there (with gas prices so high!) to pick it up; I just pay the $5 shipping and save myself time and hassle instead.

 

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