unpacking and packing

I spent the last two weeks on vacation in Southeast Asia (Cambodia & Vietnam) and got back into town Sunday in time to meet up with some friends for dinner. I'll be in town for six days and then am headed to Argentina for another week, so I'm basically packing and unpacking at the same time. Feels a little odd.

The trip was awesome; I found Angkor Wat lived up to the hype, had a great time in the Mekong Delta seeing the rural Vietnamese villages, took a billion photos of Halong Bay, and of course, ate lots and lots of yummy local food. I ended up taking almost 2000 photos, so I probably won't have time to sort through them for a couple of weeks yet. Many more details to come.

deposit without envelope

Sometime last year, my local Wells Fargo branch upgraded their ATMs with a new feature, "deposit without envelope". I love it.

Old procedure:
- Hunt down a deposit envelope.
- Write down the amounts of all the checks.
- Add up all the amounts and write the total on the envelope.
- Put all the checks into the envelope, and deposit.

New procedure:
- Stick a big stack of checks (up to 30!) directly into the ATM.
- Watch gleefully as the ATM does OCR on the checks and figures out the total.

Now they just have to invent a way to automatically endorse the checks after I enter my PIN.

consequences

Looks like the Chinese government is caught between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, they have civil unrest in Tibet, and of course they want to crush any demonstrations as quickly as possible, per their normal operating procedure.

On the other hand, aggressive use of police force against the Tibetans appears to have significantly swayed Taiwanese voters, who go to the polls in two days to choose their next president.

For me, it's win-win. Either the Tibetans raise a major ruckus and draw international attention to China's total disregard for free speech, or maybe Taiwan elects a president who doesn't want to sell the country to China. Worst case, Taiwan still ends up with a pro-China president, but at least he doesn't have a huge mandate.

Boston food

A friend of mine coerced the Boston Globe into doing a review of a new dim sum place in Boston. Reading it almost makes me want to plan a trip to Boston this year. I recently booked a one-week trip hitting New Orleans (bach party), Chicago (visiting my brother on his birthday), New York (visiting a friend on her birthday), and New Jersey (wedding), but I don't think I have the time to squeeze in a Boston to New York roundtrip too. Oh well, next year.

A More Perfect Union

I usually just skim news articles, but yesterday afternoon I started to read Barack Obama's recent speech, A More Perfect Union, and couldn't stop. I ended up spending a good 15 or 20 minutes reading it.

I'm sure he had help from his speechwriters, and I'm sure that he drew from past material, but nevertheless, the content is timely, truthful, insightful, and really well-written. I'm even more convinced now that I made the right decision when I voted in the California primary last month.

Biblical marriage

The other day, I was rereading Certain Women, a Madeleine L'Engle novel which draws parallels between the Biblical King David and a modern day David, a celebrated actor who is nearing the end of his life. Anyway, I was thinking that it's interesting that some people define marriage as a union between "one man and one woman", and then use the Bible to support that claim. Where does that leave King David and his eight wives?

spicy chocolate

I think I first discovered I really liked spicy chocolate a few years ago when I had a dessert at Azie that consisted of a molten chocolate cake spiked with shichimi.

Recently, I've discovered a couple of chocolatiers who make yummy spicy chocolate bars. Vosges has a Black Pearl dark chocolate bar which contains ginger, wasabi, and black sesame. Almost as good is their Red Fire which has chipotle chile and cinnamon. Not spicy but also yummy is the Barcelona bar which contains almonds and sea salt.

Just last week, a coworker brought in a box of chocolates from Lillie Belle Farms, and I got to sample the Cayenne Caramel. It was delicious...I have to figure out where I can get a box for myself, so I can try the rest of the flavors.

brides of March

Yesterday afternoon, I was shopping in Union Square with a friend when we heard a commotion outside. We peeked out the window and saw a large number of people, both men and women, dressed in (mostly white) wedding dresses, with lots of interesting colorful accessories, like wigs and sunglasses. I was curious, so when we went outside I asked one of the male "brides" why they were dressed up, and he replied, "It's the Brides of March!" I guess there's probably a reference to the Ides of March in there somewhere, but I don't know what it is. Anyway, I was amused.

recent eatings

I've been to quite a few new restaurants in the last few weeks, and most of them have been good. Here's a quick rundown:

Two weeks ago, I had brunch with some friends at Crepevine in Burlingame. Technically this wasn't a new restaurant for me, since I'd been there once before, but that time all I had was a Riviera crepe (lemon, sugar, butter, & orange liqueur). This time I tried a savory Tuscan crepe (chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, almonds, cheese, & pesto) which was pretty good. It came with a salad and a generous portion of home fries. I still prefer Alana's Swedish oatmeal pancakes, though.

That same day, I had dinner at PPQ Dungeness, in the city. We had three kinds of crab: roasted, curry, & peppercorn. My favorite (by far) was the peppercorn, but all three were good. We also had a pretty decent green papaya salad, some (fried?) chicken, and several other dishes, as part of a set menu. The crab was definitely the highlight, though.

Last week, some friends came to visit from New Jersey. They were staying near Chinatown, so we ended up at R & G Lounge, a nice Chinese restaurant. I've been there before, but never without my parents, so it was a bit of an adventure to be in charge of ordering. We had the famous salt & pepper crab (yes, more crab), geoduck sashimi (in Chinese it's called "elephant trunk clam"), a fish dish with ham, mushrooms, & veggies, a fairly standard beef and egg drop soup, and the ox-tail stew in a clay pot. I actually liked the geoduck sashimi much more than I'd remembered, but then again, it'd been many years since I'd had it. The fish and ham dish was also very good (or so I heard, as I only ate the ham and the mushrooms).

This last weekend, some more out-of-town friends came to visit, this time from Seattle. We ended up at Zazie, which I've been wanting to check out forever, and only had to wait around 25 minutes, since it was late (~1:30pm). The gingerbread pancakes were pretty good, but the French Toast Tahiti was amazing. The toast itself seemed to be an egg bread, which had great texture, and it was stuffed with caramelized bananas and walnuts.

That evening, we met up with some more friends from the East Bay, and we all went to Tangerine for dinner. I tend to be skeptical of Asian fusion restaurants, but this one was actually fusion as opposed to Californian food with a few Asian ingredients. My favorites were the Roasted Duck Spring Rolls and the Coriander Beef Short Ribs. We got the short ribs as an appetizer, but I think next time I'll be ordering it as an entree, since I liked it so much.

For dinner tonight, I went to Fiesta del Mar with a bunch of my coworkers. I'd heard that the restaurant is known for its drinks, and indeed, I was initially overwhelmed by the huge selection of margaritas. After a minute, I spotted the very girly "Acapulco Breeze" (made with midori and cranberry juice) and ordered a pitcher of that, to go with the pitchers of more hard-core margaritas that others had ordered. For dinner I had a pork enchilada done "Rancheras" style and also some chicken enchilada "De Mole", both of which I liked. I was told the "De Enjococado" enchiladas were amazing; I'll probably try some next time. Actually, I think everyone liked their food, and we'd ordered a pretty wide variety; tacos, fajitas, burritos, enchiladas, chile relleno, and more. Plus, the chips came with three kinds of salsa. Yum.

bocce ball

I went to a birthday party a few weeks ago that took place at Campo di Bocce, in Los Gatos. We played bocce ball.

I'd never played before, but the rules were pretty simple to pick up, and it turned out to be pretty fun. Basically, there are two teams of players. Each team has an equal number of colored balls (ours were red and green), and then there is a small silver ball called a pallino. One team rolls the pallino (it has to go a minimum distance) and then follows it with one of their colored balls. Then, the other team rolls one of their colored balls. From then on, the team who does not own the ball closest to the pallino keeps rolling, until they manage to get closest to the pallino. At the end of the round, the team who has the ball closest to the pallino scores. They score one point for every ball which is closer to the pallino than the other team's closest ball.

We played maybe five or six rounds in an hour and a half, in teams of three or four, on two courts (fields?), while munching on appetizers. I think bocce is a good activity for a birthday party, especially with a large group; there's a lot of downtime, so people have time to hang out and chat.

public policy & population

I guess the Swedish just really don't want to have kids!

From a mailing list, in a conversation about paternity/maternity leave:

...it's 18 months that we get in Sweden, with dad having to take at least 3 months of it.

Technically, both parents could get a job, and then produce children at the rate of 1 every year or so until retirement, and never work again.

The fact that even with this policy, our nativity rate is sub-self-sustaining, and that only 40% of fathers even use the benefit at all (average 38 days), is an interesting demonstration of how little impact policies have on the behavior of people.

maybe guys do suck

Okay, not really. But, I was reading a blog entry in the New York Times today, and was surprised at one of the anecdotes:

The two men – both fathers, one at the beginning of middle age, one farther along, both married to smart, high-achieving women – were fantasizing about the kinds of women they’d go out with if they were single. You may or may not be surprised to learn that they both figured the women would be babes. You may or may not be surprised to learn that they both said they’d be younger. A lot younger. And childless.

The suggestion from me that men like themselves might actually prefer to date contemporaries, women who’d lived, matured, grown wiser and more human with the experience of parenting, and, at the very least, could recall the 1980s, was met with nothing but outraged looks and half-chewed-donut silence.

“Why?” one of them finally said.

“Why,” the second one swallowed to spurt, “would you want all those complications?”

[...]

I spent the following days nursing a sputtering sort of rage. The conversation marked the end of an illusion, you see. I’d thought that in our little bubble, a bubble, it should be said, that was defined not by class or money or education, but rather by goodness and decency and values and realness (even I am laughing now), the men were somehow different from the men Out There who dated women multiple decades younger than themselves, prized them for their looks and their fecundity and fell in love with the magical rejuvenating mirrors they found in the women’s adoring young eyes.

I wasn't that fond of the overall tone of the article, and I skipped over most of the self-analysis bits, but I thought that part was kind of insightful. Although, I do wonder if maybe middle-aged women feel the same about dating younger guys. Maybe everyone sucks.

Whistler trip (cont'd)

After three or four years of wanting to go, I finally succeeded in going to Whistler this year. I was a bit concerned that after waiting so long, my expectations would be too high, but in the end, the weather was fine, the mountains were wide-open and gorgeous, and the snow was amazing.

I was told by several people that the trip would be most worth it if we skied for at three or four days. I've never tried skiing four days in a row before, so I figured we could go for four days and ski three out of those four. With travel time from Vancouver, we'd need a total of five days for the whole trip. I chose Presidents' Day weekend, so it would only be two days of vacation time, figuring the Canadians wouldn't be celebrating Presidents' Day, so the lines wouldn't be too much longer than usual.

We flew into Vancouver late on Thursday the 14th, and stayed overnight near the airport. (Yes, it was Valentine's Day, but I never liked Valentine's Day anyway.) The next morning, we got up at 6am, had our free continental breakfast (mmm, waffles), and were out the door by 7am. Unfortunately, it was snowing, and the road was under construction in many places (probably in preparation for the Vancouver Olympics in 2010), so the drive took longer than expected. We also stopped in Squamish to buy our discounted 7-11 lift tickets, and had some difficulty with the parking shuttle, so by the time we hit the slopes it was after 10am.

The first day we stayed on the Blackcomb side. I hate skiing with poor visibility, so I worried at first when the snow didn't stop, but as it turned out, there were actually good ski conditions over most of Blackcomb Mountain. We hit a bunch of the trails near Solar Coaster, Excelerator, Jersey Cream, and Crystal Chair, before grabbing some food at Glacier Creek. After lunch, we decided to brave the mountain host's warning and try out Glacier Express. Bad decision. Visibility was so poor that I couldn't even see the ground right where I was standing. It took us almost half an hour to creep back down to lower elevation, where we stayed for the rest of the day. As an aside, the mountain hosts are super helpful; they stand at the top of the major lifts and give advice on navigation and trail conditions. I really wish every ski resort had them.

We had some trouble finding the property management office to check into our condo, but finally managed to get our keys, got parked, unloaded our luggage, showered, bought groceries, and started cooking around 7pm. We had spaghetti, garlic bread, and spinach, and like all after-ski meals, it tasted amazing. Afterwards we played a game of Settlers before getting to bed.

The second day we checked out the Whistler side. It wasn't snowing anymore, and conditions were excellent at the top and bottom of the mountain. Unfortunately, mid-mountain was shrouded in heavy mist, as we discovered halfway down Franz's Chair. Consequently, we tried to stay mostly at the top of the mountain, in the Harmony and Symphony areas, both of which were very crowded, since it was Saturday, and they had the best snow conditions.

Symphony Amphitheatre, with visible mid-mountain mist:


We actually had quite an adventure getting from Harmony to Symphony. The first time, we missed the green trail that leads directly to Symphony, and bypassed the subsequent black, so we ended up on a blue that took us right back to Harmony. There, we spent 15 minutes waiting for the lift chair, making us quite eager to get away. So, the second time we missed the green trail, we decided to just take the black "Sun Bowl" instead. For some reason, I was in the lead, and I kept pushing to the right side, hoping to avoid the large moguls I was seeing on the left. Unfortunately, the trail kept getting steeper and steeper, until I finally decided to give up; I actually took off my skis and walked about 20 feet back up the mountain, until I could get back over to the left. The walking part was quite a challenge, and I'm not sure I would have made it if my friends weren't helping me with my gear. The left side was a pretty steep, mogul-filled bowl, but we were able to slowly make our way down to the Symphony Bowl, and from there to the Symphony Express. At the bottom of the Sun Bowl, I paused to catch my breath, and when I saw the narrow trail on the left-side bluff that I'd almost ended up on, I was pretty happy about my decision to walk back up the mountain.

At the end of the day we tried to take the Peak-to-Creek trail all the way down the mountain, but we missed the Peak lift by a few minutes, because it closed at 3pm instead of 3:30pm, like the other lifts. Instead, we made our way down some of the runs under the Whistler Gondola, most of which I enjoyed very much. We were much more efficient the second day getting back to the condo; instead of having to drive we took the Whistler Village shuttle, and by 6pm we had dinner on the table. This time we made "soft tacos", which were more like burritos, but messier.

The third day, we slept in, and then wandered around Whistler Village for awhile, stopping at the library, a camera store, an ice cream store, a bunch of other little shops, a hamburger joint, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. I'm totally addicted to freshly made candy, so I bought some pecan and cashew turtles, some old English toffee, and some fudge (German chocolate and B-52). Yum. We also spent some time in the bookstore, before heading home for a few games of Settlers (or Seafarers, rather). For dinner, we went to the Bavaria Restaurant for fondue. We ordered cheese fondue, Chinese-style meat fondue, and of course, Belgian chocolate dessert fondue. My favorite was the cheese fondue; the cheese was a mix of Gruyere and Emmental, the wine didn't overwhelm the cheese, and they'd also added a touch of brandy. The chocolate was also very good; in retrospect we probably should have ordered four or five of them (for the six of us) rather than just three.

Fondue time!


Monday the 18th was the last ski day, and it was also the best. Since it was the last day, we decided to go hard-core, so we woke up early, and were at the bottom of the Whistler gondola by 7:30am. We bought "Fresh Tracks" tickets, which let us go up the gondola early, and also gave us access to a pretty decent breakfast buffet. After loading up on pancakes, muffins, fruit, eggs, sausage, and bacon, we got out on the mountain just after the lifts opened (around 8:30am). We were determined to get up to the Peak since we'd missed out the last time, but the Peak lift didn't open until 9, so we took a few runs nearby while we waited. When we finally got to the Peak, we took a billion pictures of the view, as well as the giant Inukchuk statue at the top, before heading down the Peak-to-Creek trail. It took us over 35 minutes to get from top to bottom, and although we did stop a few times to admire the snow and the view, we were still going at a pretty good clip. I think that was my favorite run of the whole trip.

A very large Inukchuk:


Looking down the gondola at Whistler Village:


After that, we tried out a few easy blacks in the area (Dave Murray, Bear Paw) and then headed over to the Blackcomb side. We hadn't had a chance to try out the 7th Heaven area on our first day, so that was where we went first. There, we discovered a slight downside to the beautiful weather. It was actually so warm that the snow was starting to get a little damp and slushy. We only ended up doing a couple of runs before deciding to head to the less-sunny part of the mountain. We had a good time on both Glacier and Crystal (since we could actually see the terrain this time!) and I even tried another mogul-y black, Heavenly Basin, which turned out to be not too bad; the top was steep but less bumpy, and the bottom was bumpy but less steep. Unfortunately, at this point, our group split into two. Half of the people didn't want to try the moguls and half did, and we lost each other when we got confused as to the lift at which to meet. Luckily, it was already around 2pm by this time, so we just skied the rest of the day apart. As it turned out, no one ate lunch, so we all had nearly eight hours of skiing that day. Apparently we'd managed to stuff ourselves sufficiently at the breakfast buffet to last until closing time. My group caught one of the last lifts at Solar Coaster right as they were closing, and then did almost a straight shot down. The one short break was at my request; my legs were starting to feel pretty jelly-like at that point.

The view from the top of 7th Heaven:


For our last dinner, we put in two pre-made lasagnas, stir-fried some green beans, and I personally ate quite a bit of my candy that I had bought the previous day. We actually did a pretty good job of eating up the leftover food, but I did end up bringing home a bottle of corn oil and some Cheerios. I also tried to bring home some chips and guacamole, but the guac got confiscated by the TSA as a "liquid".

Overall, I thought the trip went extremely well. The weather was okay the first day, good the second day, and awesome the last day. The snow was good all three days (it was actually best the first day), except when 7th Heaven started to melt on the last afternoon. The condo was pretty expensive ($400+) but we easily fit six people, since we had two bedrooms plus a pull-out sofa bed. We also had three full bathrooms (which came in handy after skiing each day), a pretty good-sized washer and dryer, a full kitchen, and a pretty decent-sized living area. The Whistler Village shuttles were convenient and ran regularly, which made it really easy to get to the slopes (except on the first day, when we hadn't checked in yet). Plus, the Village itself was actually pretty big and had some cute shops and restaurants; it was fun walking around on our day off. In short, I would definitely consider going back at some point in the near future.

sushi = cure for everything

As I mentioned previously, I had a horrible stomach flu last week.

The first day, I drank apple juice and ate nothing. The second day, I had half a packet of oatmeal and half a bowl of rice porridge. On the third day, I felt like I could eat, but I still wasn't hungry and nothing tasted very good, so I think I only managed a bowl of noodle soup. On the fourth day, someone ordered in a big tray of sushi for lunch (this was in Houston). All of a sudden, I found myself starving, and I ate at least 10 pieces of sushi (mostly tuna rolls).

Apparently, the best cure for stomach flu (at least for me) is lots of raw fish.

naming collision

I'm so geeky. I find it totally hilarious that there's a restaurant in Napa called Ubuntu.

back (again)

I feel like I'm always getting "back" from something. It's probably related that I'm way behind on blogging. I did manage to upload my Whistler photos last week so those should be up soon, I think.

This time I was in Houston for a family event. Two highlights:
- I finally got to check out the Johnson Space Center (as in "Houston, we have a problem"). At first I balked at the $18 admission price, especially as I'd already been to Kennedy Space Center before, but it turned out to be more interesting than I expected. There was a pretty comprehensive update on the current status of the International Space Station and the Constellation project, plus we heard about NASA's future plans for moon and Mars exploration. We also got to see one of the real Mission Control rooms, a replica of the interior of the astronaut quarters, and some other cool stuff. We ended up spending over four hours there, and were late to dinner.
- One night for dinner, we bought 30 lbs of crawfish and cooked them with corn, potatoes, lemons, onions, and Lousiana Fish Fry's "Crawfish, Crab & Shrimp Boil". So. Good. I think there were maybe 15 people there that night, and we ate at least 20 lbs of the crawfish. This was after we had already had a full meal of Taiwanese lun bianh. Afterwards, we topped off the crawfish with fresh homemade tang yuan, ai yu jelly and fruit cocktail. Yum.

out of commission

I went to bed on Sunday night after a busy day and a yummy dinner, and everything was fine. I woke up on Monday morning with a horrible stomachache and was barely able to get out of bed. It wasn't a great time for me to be sick, since I had a couple of things I wanted to finish at work for a Tuesday deadline, but I really couldn't even sit at my desk for more than a few minutes, let alone think about driving to work. After a day and a half of sleeping and not eating anything, I seem to have achieved a state where I'm a bit tired but fine as long as I don't move too much and don't eat anything. I really hope things improve in the next day; I'm supposed to get on a really early flight on Thursday morning. Sigh.

Whistler trip

I just got back (well, two days ago) from a five-day trip to Whistler.

I'd been meaning to go for years, but things kept coming up, so I was super paranoid about planning this trip, and had it all organized and booked before Thanksgiving. Everything worked out beautifully, up to and including the stopover at the Squamish 7-11 to get discounted lift tickets (69 CAD). In the end, I didn't want to leave, but unfortunately there are such things as work, and besides, the lodging costs there are ridiculous.

Anyway, photos and details to come! I did want to briefly comment on the huge number of Aussies working the lifts (aka "lifties"), restaurants, and shops at Whistler. I guess they chase the winter to the northern hemisphere every year. Fascinating.

passport pages

Last week I went to the San Francisco Passport Agency to get more pages added to my passport.

Normally you can get new pages via mail, but it takes "3-6 weeks", and by the time I figured that out, I had maybe a page and a half of space left, and it was nearly December. Unfortunately, I didn't have a gap of 6 weeks at any time between December and April, and during that time, I had plans to go to Taiwan, Japan, Canada, Cambodia, Vietnam, Argentina, and potentially Brazil, which meant at least two visas and several entry/exit stamps. So, I scheduled an in-person appointment, and it ended up pretty much sucking all around, for a variety of reasons.

First, I left my passport at home, so I had to turn around and get it, which meant 15 minutes lost.

Then, I stupidly took 101 to 4th Street instead of taking 280 to 6th Street, and got stuck in traffic. It took me 20 minutes to go 2 miles.

After a few futile efforts to find street parking, I ended up parking in a lot that charged $2.50...per 15 minutes.

At this point I was 45 minutes late for my 9am appointment, so when I got to the security checkpoint and the guard objected to my 1.5 inch long Swiss Army knife, I told him to throw it away. He wouldn't do it. He said that I would have to take the knife downstairs to the lobby where there was a trash can. Instead, I took the knife and hid it in a nearby bush outside the building, and then headed back up, where there was now a line at the checkpoint.

By the time I got to the check-in counter, it was nearly 10am, but luckily the passport agency isn't too strict about appointment times. However, the woman at the counter made me fill out my application (yes, they have an application just to get more pages) before giving me a number.

After a 15 minute wait, my number got called, and I handed the application to the agent, who told me the fee would be $60. I was a bit confused, since on the website it had said adding extra pages was free, but he said that since I was leaving the country in a week, my application was for "expedited processing" which cost $60.

I grumbled and paid him, and then he asked me if I would like to pick up my passport at 3pm or at 11am the next morning. Confused, I asked how long it would take; somehow I'd gotten the mistaken impression they would just add the pages on the spot. His response was that the designated passport pickup times are 11am and 3pm. To his credit, he did hint that if I showed up at 9am they would probably let me pick up my passport anyway. I asked for a 3pm pickup time, so the passport would at least be ready (although potentially not available) at 9am the next day, and resigned myself to another morning of driving to the city.

On the way out, I retrieved my knife from its bush and paid $7.50 for 40 minutes of parking. Then, I headed to Tartine to buy a cake. Even a crappy day feels better when you know you have a scrumptious devil's food cake stashed in the fridge, ready to serve to your dinner guests.

Things went much more smoothly the next day; I had no passport to forget, I navigated traffic smoothly, and I found street parking in time to wait outside the agency with the other 20 or 30 people who had gotten there before 9am. I was able to retrieve my passport outside of the designated pickup time, but I was a bit surprised when I got it back and discovered that the way they add pages is to glue a stack of them into the middle of the book. Plus, the pages were glued in kind of crooked, and the new pages don't match the existing ones, so the whole thing looks really ghetto; like something I could have done at home. Apparently that's what you get for your $60, courtesy of the US government.

As an aside, I think the fact that they only give you 24 pages for a 10-year passport is a bit silly. Several people have disagreed with me on this; they think that lots of people get passports and travel only a few times. However, both use cases would be served if passport applicants were able to specify on their applications if they wanted a 48-page (or larger) passport book. Unfortunately, the passport agency really has no incentive to provide this option; in fact, in my particular case, they would have lost $60. Although, even I'm not paranoid enough to believe that they issue small books on purpose. I think.

hackers with guns

Today I had lunch with several engineers visiting from the Taipei office.

In Taiwan, every male citizen is required to complete mandatory military service. One of the engineers had just finished his stint in the army. So, halfway through the meal, I found myself listening to a glib discussion about the merits of the various types of guns used by the Taiwanese military. Apparently there are several important things to consider, such as the length of the barrel (shorter is less accurate but easier to carry for short Asian soldiers), the age of the model (some guns from the late 1970's were still being used as recently as a few years ago), and various gun performance benchmarks.

I'm not sure exactly why I was amused, but I was. I guess I'm not used to computer science geeks who know their guns.

Hawaiians from Taiwan?

I vaguely remember hearing something awhile ago about how recent research had suggested that Polynesians may have originally come from Taiwan. I was telling a friend about it today, and in trying to find support for my claim, I came across this Economist article. I hadn't seen it before, but it looks like it may have been the primary source for whatever I had seen/heard:

Maori legend has it that Polynesians originated from a place called "Hawaiki". Where Hawaiki was located is a mystery. But the toings and froings of the Polynesians—arguably the greatest seafarers in history—have long intrigued researchers of an anthropological turn of mind, and two of them, Jean Trejaut and Marie Lin of Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei, think they know the answer to the riddle of Hawaiki: Taiwan.

This is not a total surprise. Linguistic evidence pointed that way already. But, in a study just published in Public Library of Science Biology, Dr Trejaut and Dr Lin nail the question down with that talisman of modern research, genetics.

Present day Taiwan has a population of 23m, but only 400,000 are descended from the island's original inhabitants (the majority of the population is descended from mainland Chinese who have settled there over the past 400 years). Those 400,000 speak—or, at least historically spoke—languages belonging to a group known as Austronesian, which is unrelated to Chinese, but includes the Polynesian tongues. Indeed, small though the aboriginal Taiwanese population is, it accounts for nine of the ten linguistic sub-families of Austronesian. Hence the supposition that Hawaiki might be Taiwan.

To check this out, Dr Trejaut and Dr Lin decided to look at variations in mitochondrial DNA. This is passed from mother to offspring without genetic admixture from the father, because it is found in the bodies of cells—including, crucially, egg cells—rather than in the cell nuclei where the rest of the genes reside. (Sperm jettison their mitochondrial DNA at fertilisation.) That makes tracing mutations through the generations easier than looking at those genes that get mixed up by sex.

In a study involving 640 people from nine Taiwanese tribes, Dr Trejaut and Dr Lin found three mutations shared by Taiwanese, Polynesians and Melanesians (who also speak Austronesian) which are not found in other Asians. So the mystery seems to have been solved at last. Where the Taiwanese came from, though, is a different question again.

fully vaccinated

This morning I went to see a travel nurse. I figured that since I'm going to both Southeast Asia and South America in the next few months, I should see about getting some vaccines. As it turns out, there's actually quite a list of diseases to worry about when traveling. Luckily, I'm up to date on HepA, HepB, TDaP, and MMR, so today I only had to get shots for Typhoid and Yellow Fever, as well as a script for some Malaria pills. After he finished with my vaccines, the nurse pointed out that now I'm pretty much good to go even for Africa, although for that he recommended a polio booster as well. Hmm, Africa...

Japan (Tokyo & Yokohama)

I meant to get up early on our first day in Tokyo so I could see the Tsukiji Fish Market auction, but after getting in at midnight, I was too exhausted to drag myself out of bed at 5am, so instead I slept in. After finally getting up around 9am, we decided to head to Shibuya first:


After walking around a bit, we grabbed a quick lunch in the 109 tower (Korean food), had authentic Japanese Beard Papa's for dessert (tasted about the same, actually), and then caught a train to Yokohama.

It only took us about half an hour to get to there, but everything felt totally different compared to the bustle of Tokyo. There were some interesting buildings, some pretty waterfront views, and an interesting set of "Red Brick Warehouses" which housed some cute boutiques and restaurants, kind of like Faneuil Hall in Boston:


Following instructions from our tour book, we hopped on a bus to check out the nearby Sankeien Garden:



The garden was peaceful and pretty but surprisingly uncrowded. In fact, I got the impression that generally there were not that many people around in Yokohama; maybe they had all gone elsewhere on vacation.

After taking the bus back to town, we walked around the Motomachi shopping area for a bit, and then briefly stopped by the Yokohama Chinatown (every Japanese city has one!) before heading back to Tokyo.

At this point I was actually very tired, and I nearly chose to head straight back to the hotel; maybe grabbing fast food for dinner. But, after a good 20 minute nap on the train ride back, I felt somewhat refreshed and we decided to go with the original plan, which was to have a nice Japanese dinner. We chose Shunju, located at the top of the Sanno Park Tower in Akasaka.

In retrospect, I'm really glad we decided to go. The view was amazing, the food was creative and delicious, and our waitress spoke excellent English. Here are a few photos from one of the set course meals:




My favorite dishes were the steamed clams (very simple dish, executed flawlessly) and the Japanese prime beef (melt-in-your-mouth tender, cooked to a perfect medium rare).

Feeling much better after dinner, we headed to Roppongi to get an obligatory glance at the Tokyo Tower:


We were there for all of fifteen minutes, but even so, I could tell I didn't like Roppongi. There were too many drunk, loud Americans, the restaurants were overpriced, and I felt like I had to watch my camera bag (the only time I ever worried about pickpockets in Japan). We left pretty quickly, so we ended up getting to bed fairly early, for once.

On our last day in Japan, we got up bright and early, and were checked out of our hotel by 8am. First, we walked around the Imperial Palace gardens, and then visited the infamous Yasukuni shrine. I took a photo there that I actually like quite a lot:


Next we went to Shinjuku, where we saw lots of big department stores, other smaller stores (Taito Game Station! Mister Donut!), and another small shrine. We also ran across a vending machine that looked like it sold food. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the vending machine was used to buy real meals; after putting in money, we chose an udon dish and the machine dispensed a ticket, which we then took inside and exchanged for real food. We were very amused but the Japanese people around us just thought we were strange.

Right before heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage, we stopped by Asakusa, where the Senso-ji temple is. It was crazy busy there, but in a fun way; lots of women were dressed in kimonos (as they had been in Kyoto earlier in the week), there was lots of street food (I ate some fresh Senbei), and it was generally a very festive atmosphere:


Finally, we grabbed our luggage, caught the Narita Express to the airport, and were on our way home! Next time I'm scheduling a trip to Japan, I hope I'll remember that four days is not enough.

board games & coffee

Yesterday, we had some people over for games. With eight people, we were able to split into two games with four people each. I played Thebes for the second time ever, and the other table played Puerto Rico. It was a fun time as always, and even though I played an extremely straightforward strategy, I managed to win this time.

Anyway, I was commenting to one of the other players that I hadn't played games in forever, but I realized that wasn't true. While in Taipei, a friend took us to a small coffeehouse near 台大, which boasted an impressive two-wall collection of board games, both for play and for sale. We spent two or three hours there, drinking tea and coffee and playing a new game, Notre Dame. I wish we had one of those around here!

Incidentally, the cafe was running an interesting promotion at the time; any female customer could get 10% off her order by doing 10 push-ups, or 20% off by doing 20. Unfortunately, the discount only applied to her drink(s), not to the rest of the table, otherwise I would have done it. (It didn't seem worth it to do push-ups in a restaurant in order to save 50 cents.)

Japan (Kyoto)

On our second full day in Japan, a friend took us to Kyoto to see some of the many beautiful shrines and temples. The ride from Osaka to Kyoto was a short fifteen minutes by Shinkansen, but when we got to Kyoto and started to look for a lunch spot, we were stymied by long lines everywhere. Apparently, many companies give their employees up to a week of vacation for the New Year, so everyone was out and about, enjoying their holiday.

We finally decided to grab a quick bite when we got to our first destination, which turned out to be the Fushimi Inari shrine, which is famous for its many red "torii" (Shinto holy gates):


Because it was New Year's, there were tons of small stands outside the shrine, selling various types of Japanese street food. I had more takoyaki, some oden, a skewer of yakitori, and yakisoba. I passed on the grilled squid, but had some egg puffs for dessert.

After eating too much again, we spent some time exploring the shrine, but decided not to undertake the two-hour hike up the mountain behind it. Instead, we headed over to the equally famous Kiyomizu temple:


There is a balcony at the top of the temple which has a really nice view of Kyoto:


We hung out there for awhile to take photos, and were told about a folk tale involving jumping off the balcony to get a wish granted. To me, it looked like an awfully long way to fall, but apparently many people survived, way back when. Nowadays it's prohibited for anyone to attempt a jump.

The temple's name means "pure water"; it is named after the waterfall that flows through the complex. Many of the visitors drink the water from the fall, believing it will bring them health, longevity, and academic success:


On our way out, we stopped by a small cafe for some mochi and tea. I had warabimochi for the first time, and I liked it so much that I tried to buy some to take home, but was told it only stays good for two, maybe three days. Too bad.

Afterwards, we made our way to a restaurant called Ushi no Hone, in a trendy area near the river. The menu consisted mostly of small dishes, of which we ordered many. My favorites were the beautifully arranged Japanese appetizer platter, the fried lotus root, the grilled meat, and the salmon and ikura rice (and I'm not usually fond of cooked fish).

Finally, we hopped on yet another Shinkansen train so we could get to Tokyo before midnight. I'm usually a fan of taking public transportation when travelling, but I was pretty exhausted even after sleeping through half of the nearly three hour ride, so we ended up cabbing it to our hotel, the Monterey Hanzomon, before crashing for the night.

Japan (Osaka, Himeji, & Kobe)

After leaving Taiwan, we went to Japan for four days, which was definitely not long enough.

On the first day, we arrived at Narita around 3pm, exchanged our vouchers for Japan Rail Passes (expensive at $230 apiece, but a good investment nevertheless), and took the Narita Express to Tokyo Station (1 hour) where we transferred to the Shinkansen, which we took to Osaka (3 hours). A friend who lives in Osaka met us at the train station, and took us to our hotel, the Namba Oriental, in the southern downtown area.

After leaving our luggage, we went out for a late dinner. Our hotel was very well located so there were tons of restaurants within walking distance. Our friend chose Chibo, which, despite being a chain restaurant, is well known for their okonomiyaki. I had never had any before, and after sampling three different kinds which were all yummy, I decided I liked it very much:


After dinner, we bought some fresh Takoyaki from a street vendor and walked around for a bit, but soon headed back to our hotel to sleep.

The next morning we got up bright and early to check out the Umeda Sky Building, which actually consists of two buildings which are connected at the top by some escalators and an observation deck. It's a pretty cool looking structure, with a great view from the top:



We ate a simple lunch in the basement (I had a katsu-don) and then hopped on a train bound for Himeji, to see the famous Himeji Castle. Himeji is about an hour away from Osaka by train, but the castle is very much worth the trip. It's amazing to think that it was built in the 1600's; the intricately detailed roofs, the exterior white walls, and the interior rooms are all in surprisingly good shape. Also, the castle is deceptively large; we were able to walk through one of the buildings as well as the main tower (after removing our shoes, naturally) which took much longer than I expected.

Taken from the garden outside the castle:


Taken from inside the main tower:


After leaving the castle we grabbed some snacks in the train station. This is where I discovered Manneken Belgian waffles. I tried the green tea flavor as well as the original, and both were very good (I had a slight preference for the green tea):


I wonder if the name is some kind of weird Japanese tribute to the Manneken Pis in Brussels?

Finally, after everything in Himeji started closing (which was around 6pm!) we took the train to Kobe, where we checked out the local Chinatown, ate some gyoza, played some pachinko, and shopped a bit, before returning to Osaka for a late shabu shabu dinner. Unfortunately, since we were only in Kobe for a few hours, we didn't have time to find a good place to eat Kobe beef. I guess that's a good reason to go back!

10 days in Taiwan

I finally got all the photos from my Taiwan and Japan trips culled, cleaned up, and uploaded. Here are some of the Taiwan highlights...

On the first night after we arrived, after hanging out at Barcode, we had rice porridge (shi fan) for midnight snack (siao yeh):



A few days later, we spent the evening at the Shi Lin night market, eating snacks like fried pork buns, grilled sugar cane, and egg puffs. Some people had the famous stinky tofu, but not me; I'm not a fan:


I hadn't been to the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall for at least ten years. This year it was renamed as the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall:



Kanpai is a Japanese-style yakiniku restaurant that my cousin introduced me to a few years ago. There are two gimmicks that apply only at 8pm; if you empty your drink glass, you get a free refill (hence, the name, "kanpai"), and if you kiss someone for ten seconds, you get a free plate of meat. I took some friends there one night and we took advantage of both promotions:


On New Year's Eve, a friend took us to an area on the outskirts of Taipei city. From there we had a nice view of the Taipei 101 fireworks, as well as other, smaller displays:


My brother was in Taipei in late summer, before the Autumn Moon Festival, and he was sweet enough to save two Haagen Daze ice cream "mooncakes" for me. I was skeptical of the sesame flavored one at first but it turned out to be the yummier of the two:


This was my first introduction to Hakka-style "lei cha". First, you grind sesame and other seeds into paste, and then they add crispy rice and hot water. It sounds kind of nasty but actually tastes pretty good:




Nearby the tea house, we saw some cool old buildings. Here's a shot of one of the roofs:


On the day we flew to Tokyo, just before our flight, a friend who works in the air traffic control tower at the Taipei airport showed us around, which was really cool:




Other than that, we mostly ate a lot:
- the requisite Din Tai Fong dumplings
- lunch in a department store basement, including beef noodle soup, oyster pancake (oah tsen), beef wrapped in soft pancakes (jin bing), and tofu soup dessert (dao whei)
- Peking duck at Long Du
- super cheap Chinese breakfasts, with rice rolls (fan tuan), Chinese donut (you tiao) wrapped in a flaky crust (sao bing), soy milk, dumplings, potstickers, Chinese bread (man tou), the list goes on...
- Taiwanese hamburger (gua bao), with fatty pork, fresh peanut powder, and cilantro
- authentic pearl milk tea!
- hot grass jelly (so good I always burn my tongue)
- 8-10 stir-fried dishes (meats, vegetables, seafood, egg, etc.) mixed together and wrapped in a pancake (lun bianh), my favorite

I'll save Japan highlights for future posts.

oops

I accidentally posted some information here instead of on my work blog a few minutes ago. I guess that'll teach me to look more carefully at which browser instance I'm using. On the bright side, any non-coworker probably found those posts totally unreadable anyway. Anyway, I've erased those posts now.

researching airfares

The quest to find the best airfares never ends, but new web tools keep popping up:
- FareCompare shows fares over an extended time period, so it's easy to find the cheapest time to travel on a particular route.
- FareCast tries to predict if a particular fare will go up or down over the next 30 days, and makes a recommendation (e.g. "Buy Now" vs "Wait").
- Kayak and SideStep have been my most reliable sources for finding cheap flights over the past year or two, and now they've merged. I hope nothing much changes.
- I also recently found a good deal on a flight to Argentina using ATIflights.

back home

I just got back home after spending two weeks in Taiwan and Japan. Lots of details to come, but for now, two quick travel notes:

Although we did no itinerary coordination whatsoever, I somehow ended up on the same flight from Tokyo to San Francisco as a friend who was returning from Seoul (connecting through Tokyo). Similarly, when I first arrived in Taipei from San Francisco, I ran into two friends at the baggage claim area, who had just gotten off a flight from Tokyo. It seems that I can't walk into an airport in Asia without bumping into someone I know, at least during the holiday season.

After arriving, I knew I was home after walking out of the airport terminal, when I looked for a garbage can, and found it two feet away. Looking down the street, I saw that there was a garbage can at every exit! Furthermore, throwing away my water bottle did not require deciphering the labels on a dizzying array of containers, to determine which was for "PET bottles", as opposed to "other bottles", "paper containers", "newspaper", "burnable trash", "other trash", etc. I felt a bit guilty that I was relieved to be back where it's considered virtuous just to sort recycling from trash.

TP on a tray

Yesterday night, we were at Partyworld again, and we ran out of toilet paper. (In Asia, pretty much every KTV room has it's own private bathroom.) We rang the service phone, and two minutes later, a server arrived, carrying a roll of TP on a tray, waitress-style. We were quite amused. Then again, we'd been drinking Suntory.

must stop drinking (and eating)

Apparently, "let's meet up in Taipei" is code for "let's get together every night, stay out late, and eat and drink like crazy people".

This year, somehow everyone decided to fly to Taipei for the holidays. Several of us arrived around 8pm on the night of the 23rd, and after dropping off our bags and taking a quick shower, we promptly headed for BarCode, a bar/lounge near Taipei 101. Originally the plan was to check out Room 18 as well, but then we heard several reports that it was full of teenyboppers and we didn't want to be the sketchy old people in the 18+ club. The cocktails were really quite good, and not terribly expensive, I had a "Honey Berry Royale" which had berry juice, vodka, and champagne in it, which only cost about $10, and several people had a "Healthy Happy Sexy" drink (or some similarly badly named), which was excellent. Around midnight we thought about heading to a club before deciding we were starving and headed to a cheapo restaurant nearby. Good decision; the cover for the club would have been 800 NT (about $25) per person, and instead we ended up spending a total of $50 for ten people to have second dinner. The restaurant (one of many on that street) served porridge with tons of side dishes; my favorites were the Japanese tofu, the fatty pork, the marinated clams, and the pickled bean sprouts. I had no jetlag problems at all and felt into bed exhausted around 3am.

The next day, after a five-course Christmas dinner with my family at one of my favorite Western-style Taipei restaurants (亞里士), we headed to the Partyworld KTV in Shi Men Ding. Since there were ten or twelve of us again, and we had a F&B minimum of 100 NT ($3) per head, we ended up staying four hours and going through five pitchers of Taiwan Beer and a bunch of Smirnoff Ice. Several people headed off to Mint (club, basement of 101) afterwards, but I decided 2am was late enough, since I had to be up at 8am.

Today I woke up feeling full already, but we nevertheless stuffed ourselves silly in the basement of the Breeze Center, eating beef noodle soup, shredded beef wrapped in soft pancakes, ramen, Japanese fried vegetables, and of course, dao whei (soft tofu in ginger syrup), which I ordered with peanuts. Only five hours later, we had Peking duck and dim sum at Long Du (famous for their duck), before heading over to the Shi Lin Night Market. There, I ate a bag of egg puffs, pork jerky, and part of a fried pork dumpling, before conceding to the physical limitations of my stomach. We ended the evening playing silly carnival games for cheap prizes. I finally headed home around midnight, feeling old and tired, and walked in through my front door twenty minutes ago. I should probably go to sleep now.

Christmas cookies

After two years of thinking about it but not doing it, I actually managed to bake and distribute Christmas cookies this year.

I baked three types of cookies: Chocolate Chocolate-Chip with Mocha Cream, Ginger Lemon, and Almond Tuiles. They turned out pretty well, except the Mocha Cream, which was gooey and messy except when refrigerated. Without modifying the recipes, I ended up with enough cookies to fill 12 cellophane bags, with each bag containing two chocolate, two ginger lemon, and one almond cookie. That doesn't include the 10+ cookies that I broke during the baking process; I realized after I had already started that I was out of parchment paper, and with only one Silpat and multiple baking sheets, several cookies had unfortunate accidents. I chalked it up as a learning experience and ate the mishaps over the next two days.

fun birthday

My birthday party this year was a tripleheader, starting at 3pm and ending at 2am.

We started at the Scharffen Berger factory, where we had an hour-long private tour, during which we tasted three kinds of chocolate: the 70% bittersweet, the 62% semisweet, and the 41% milk chocolate. After we ended the tour (in the gift shop, naturally), we tasted two others: the 82% extra dark and the milk chocolate nibby. Apparently a "nib" is a cacao bean which has been roasted and peeled but not yet crushed. I found them yummy, but some people didn't like that they weren't sweet at all. I also managed to try smaller samples of the milk almond (41% with sea salted almonds), the 99% unsweetened chocolate, the limited edition (75% Antilles), and the 62% mocha, as well as the zante currents (chocolate-covered champagne grapes). In the end, my favorites were the limited edition and the nibby bar.

After selecting a few bars to take home for later, we headed next door to Cafe Cacao for more chocolate. I had a slice of the famous tribute cake, as well as a bite of the raspberry truffle cake, and some espresso, to wash it all down. I much preferred the tribute cake, which was barely sweet at all; it was pure chocolate-y goodness.

Immediately after chocolate came sushi, at East Bay favorite Sushi House. Somewhere between Berkeley and Alameda, I started to feel a bit lightheaded, probably from the huge overdose of chocolate and sugar. Luckily, once I got some sushi in my stomach, I was fine, except that I wasn't able to have my usual tempura ice cream for dessert.

Finally, a bunch of us finished up the evening at Music Tunnel, where the hard-core among us ended up staying until 2am again, before making our way home. It was a very fun day.

chicken marsala

I've modified this a bunch from the original recipe over the past year. Here's my version:

Chicken Marsala

1. Boil 1 small can of chicken broth for ~20 minutes until reduced by about 2/3.

2. Chop up one whole large shallot and saute in butter until it starts to brown. Add a small container of mushrooms, a spoonful of sage, salt, and pepper, and cook until the mushrooms are soft and brown.

3. Take a pound of chicken breasts and split them in half (so they're thin). Tenderize, season with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, and then saute each side in olive oil until the chicken is cooked. Set aside.

4. Add 1 cup marsala wine to mushrooms and bring to boil. Add reduced broth, 1/4 cup cream, and one lemon's worth of lemon juice.

5. Arrange the chicken on the serving plate and pour the mushrooms mixture on top.

Sometimes I add a little more Marsala wine at the end.

and now, for the depressing post of the week...

I read two things this week that made me sad.

The first one was a reminder on a women engineers' mailing list, that December 6th was the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre. What massacre, you ask? I'd never heard of it, so I checked on Wikipedia:

The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife, shot twenty-eight people, killing fourteen (all of them women) and injuring the other fourteen before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targetting women to shoot. He killed fourteen women and injured four men and ten women in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.

I had to look twice at that date. 1989 is the same year as the Loma Prieta quake, so I would have been in sixth grade, and I definitely would have been reading the news by then. How did I not hear about this before? Maybe the US news media doesn't care about Canada? And, how, in North America in the late 20th century, does someone grow up hating women? Ugh.

The second item was an article in the NYTimes, sent to me by a friend who is a lawyer in New York City. It seems that for about a year now, the elevators at the Bronx Family Court have been so bad that people wait for hours outside the courthouse, in lines that go all the way down the block:

In some cases, warrants have even been issued for people who are downstairs waiting for an elevator; judges know only that they are not in the courtroom, said Bill Nicholas, the assistant attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s office at the court.

The judges have less trouble getting upstairs because they use a bank of elevators reserved for court personnel. The public is not allowed on those, and may not use the stairs because of security concerns. Among them, there are no cameras in the stairwells, and the narrow stairwells are impractical for small children or people pushing strollers. So they must wait.

I usually hate personal stories from random people in news articles (abuse of ad hominem!), but this one kind of broke my heart:

Bernard Wilkerson, a construction flagger for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said his custody and child support case against his wife had been dismissed three times because each time he was delayed in line and missed a hearing. Each time he had to petition again to restart the case.

Now he carries the court clerk’s number with him, so he can phone in when he is downstairs. Even with the steady rain beating down on his coat, he said this morning wasn’t that bad.

He was standing only 20 yards from the entrance of the building. Even with the long line inside, he would probably be upstairs in about an hour, certainly less than two. The thought cheered him.

“Sometimes I arrive here and I am standing outside Law and Government High School,” he said, referring to the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice several hundred yards away.

RIP 6.170

6.170 is (was) the Software Engineering Lab class at MIT. Apparently it's just been scrapped. Its content will be replaced by the new 6.005 (Principles of Software Development) in conjunction with a "series of new software laboratory classes, numbered 6.17*".

I'm sure this plan is all carefully thought out and everything but I'm kind of depressed about it anyway. I really liked 6.170, especially the month-long team project at the end, which is apparently not going to be included in the 6.005 class.

salads

Here are some salads that I've made recently and liked:

Apple Salad

1. Cut up 3-4 apples into slices and add to a bowl of mixed greens.

2. Add dried cranberries, sliced almonds, and feta cheese. (Pinenuts, chopped walnuts and dried apricots are also good.)

3. Toss with a cheesy dressing, like Marie's Blue Cheese Vinaigrette or Annie's Artichoke Parmesan dressing.

Greek Salad

1. Cut up a cucumber and a few tomatoes, and add sliced red onions and sliced green peppers.

2. Add canned black olives, capers, and feta cheese.

3. Toss with salt, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, and a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil.

It appears that I'm quite fond of feta cheese.

clothing challenge

Yesterday morning, I spent at least ten minutes thinking about what to wear. For me, this is not a common occurrence at all.

The problem statement:
I was going to a birthday party at the Exploratorium which included a visit to the Tactile Dome. I hadn't been to the Tactile Dome since I was about ten (school field trip) and definitely didn't want to miss out. So, I needed to wear something that would allow me to crawl around on my hands and knees in the dark. I also wanted to look somewhat reasonably well dressed at Davies Symphony Hall, two hours later.

The solution:
I ended up wearing a purple knit dress with black jeans underneath, and I took off the jeans before heading to the symphony. I also changed my shoes from sneakers to pumps.

I think if I were a guy I could have just worn khakis and a button-down shirt to both. Not quite fair, is it?

Incidentally, we didn't make it to the late birthday party after the symphony yesterday. I'd made post-performance reservations at Jardiniere, and we ended up meeting there with some friends who had just come from the opera. After several hours of sitting around chatting while enjoying our espresso, dessert wine, port, and generous helpings of dessert, we decided that it wasn't worth heading over to Suede since we'd only be there for an hour before closing. Next time!

holiday party

This post will not include a recipe, I promise.

Yesterday night I went to the annual holiday party. I was actually debating whether or not to go; last year's was super crowded, noisy, and there was an hour-long wait for parking. This year the party was moved from the city to Mountain View, so I figured I might as well give it another shot. That turned out to be a great decision; the theme was much better (outer space, very well executed, versus last year's very random Greek god theme), it was less crowded due to having split the party across two nights, the venue was divided into only three large rooms rather than five or six smaller rooms, and the food was significantly better, probably due to lots of people complaining after last time.

When the party started to wind down around midnight, we headed to an after-party nearby, which was awesome; it was a much smaller crowd, there was great music (lots of 80's), delicious hors d'oeuvres (tiny hamburgers, chocolate cupcakes, and various canapes), and real drinks, as opposed to just wine and beer. I walked in and was promptly handed a glass of Rockstar and SoCo, which was surprisingly good but really strong. We stayed there until about two and then decided we better go home if we were going to make it through today; the plan is to go to three birthday parties (12pm, 3pm, 11pm) and see the SF symphony (8pm). I should probably go and take a nap.

A few photos (main party):

chicken karaage & spinach salad

I tried this recipe for the first time yesterday night, and ended up eating a lot of fried chicken. I probably shouldn't make it very often.

Chicken Karaage

1. Cut up 1 lb of chicken thighs (about 4 pieces per thigh).

2. Marinate the chicken for 30-45 minutes in: 3 parts soy sauce and 1 part sake, with one piece of ginger and several cloves of garlic, minced.

3. Dredge the chicken in cornstarch and then fry in oil until the crispy exterior starts to look golden.

I thought I should eat some vegetables too, so I made a cooked spinach salad.

Japanese Spinach Salad

1. Boil a bag of baby spinach for a couple of minutes. Drain and then dry with paper towels.

2. Add white sesame seeds and equal parts sugar, soy sauce, and sake.

pineapple roasted ham

When I was a kid, my mother always baked ham for Thanksgiving, because my great-aunt always made the turkey. Consequently, I know way more about baking a ham than roasting a turkey.

This is what I did with the ham for this year's pre-Thanksgiving party.

Pineapple Roasted Ham

1. Buy half of a spiral cut honey ham. It'll probably be around 8 pounds.

2. Use a knife to score the surface of the ham in a criss-cross pattern. Each line should be about an inch away from the next line. Then, take a jar of cloves and stick one clove in the center of each cross, over the entire surface of the ham.

3. Open two cans of sliced pineapples. Pour the juice from the two cans into a saucepan, add maple syrup (~1/4 cup) and brown sugar (~1/4 cup), and simmer. Using the pineapple slices, cover the surface of the ham, using a toothpick to secure each one.

4. Sprinkle a good amount of brown sugar over the ham (probably 1-2 cups), and use a spoon to press the sugar into the crevices between the pineapple slices. Then, pour half of the pineapple-sugar mixture over the ham.

5. Bake the ham at 350 degrees for about 2 hours. Every 30 minutes, take the ham out, baste with the juice in the pan, and add a little more pineapple-sugar sauce.

To serve, remove all of the pineapple slices and all the cloves, then cut the ham and arrange on a plate with the pineapple slices.

chocolate bread pudding

I had leftover egg bread after having made a pumpkin bread pudding for a Halloween party, so the next day, I decided to improvise a chocolate bread pudding recipe. It turned out pretty well, probably because I put a lot of brandy in it.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

1. Cut up a roll of egg bread into 1-inch pieces.

2. Melt half a bar of bittersweet baking chocolate, then add 1 cup cream, 1/4 cup brandy, and maybe 1/4 cup sugar, and stir until well mixed.

3. Fold the bread cubes into the chocolate mixture, put into a loaf pan, and let stand for 15 min.

4. Bake for about 20-25 min at 350 degrees, or until the center passes the toothpick test.

(All of the amounts are estimates; I was using leftover ingredients so I just finished off what I had.)

apple crisp

This year, I've been using a lot of "recipes" that are either significantly modified, very vague, or made up entirely. I'm a bit afraid I'm going to forget some of them, so I've decided I'm going to start writing them down.

Here's one that I invented out of necessity, because the apple tree in my backyard is hyperactive.

Apple Crisp

1. Peel and slice enough apples to fill up a 8 or 9-inch round pan. Soak them in salt water while peeling and slicing, so they don't brown.

2. Toss with a generous amount of brown sugar and cinnamon, plus some nutmeg and half a lemon worth of lemon juice, and set aside.

3. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter (3/4 of a stick) and add flour and brown sugar until the whole mixture is crumbly. I usually use a bit more flour than sugar.

4. Fill a small plastic bag about 1/4 full of pecans, and use a meat tenderizer to crush them. Mix the pecans into the crumbly dough.

5. Top the apples with the dough and bake for about an hour.