moment of dread

Q: How do I know when there's a good chance that I'm going to feel stupid soon?
A: When my friend asks me, "How good are you at combinatorics?"

I guess it could have been worse, she could have asked me how good I was at statistics. (I suck at math. Yes, I really do program for a living.)

incremental improvement

Just finished today's Goblin Run in 26:58. I didn't dress in costume (yes, bad me), but if the listed course distance of 3.18 miles is correct, I did achieve a new personal best of 8:29/mile. (My previous best was in the spring, when I ran 8:32/mile. Huge improvement, right?) I'm a little bummed that I got passed at the last second by a guy in a Luigi suit, though.

overheard

or seen on a public post, rather, at work today:

coworker #1:	Is there an idiom for doing a really bad job at something you shouldn't have been trying to do in the first place?
coworker #2:	Operation Iraqi Freedom.

communal living

As I mentioned before, D and I have been remodelling our house these last few months.

Our architect strongly encouraged us not to try to live in the house during construction, so at first we thought we would have to rent an apartment. Then, D's old college roommate generously invited us to live with him and his wife for the duration of the project. They had coincidentally moved to a house about a mile away from us last year, and luckily they had yet to entirely furnish the place.

So, nearly six months ago, we completely emptied out our house. We sold off our cheapo living room furniture and rented a moving van. We moved our family room furniture into their empty living room, and put our breakfast table into their empty dining area. We stacked probably ten or fifteen boxes in the back of their living room, and put another five in their garage. We brought over a couple of dressers for our clothes, and packed the rest of our furniture into our own garage.

We've been mostly living out of two rooms; one is our bedroom, with a bed and dressers, and the other serves as a study/living area, with a desk, couch, and TV. We all use the family room and kitchen together, as no one ever really hangs out in the living room. (Amusingly, one of their visiting friends once remarked that she liked their new couches, only to find out that they were ours.) It's been really comfortable for us and we all get along amazingly well.

I was thinking the other day, I'm surprised more couples don't live together like this. D and I had a housemate for several years before we started the remodelling project, but we didn't hang out with him all that much, and he pretty much never used the kitchen. Similarly, some of our other friends have single housemates, but we don't know of any other households consisting of multiple couples.

These days, at least once or twice a week, the four of us will manage to conjure up a multi-course dinner from scratch. We all love farmer's markets, so we're always well-stocked with fruits, veggies, and fresh bread. We never get bored, because we have built-in critical mass for board games (our favorites are Puerto Rico and Agricola) and video games (Rock Band, Starcraft). There's a ping-pong table in the garage, a grill in the backyard, and between us we have two wine fridges full of wine and a ton of hard liquor. Also, with four of us being in the same place already, it's super easy to convince our friends to come over instead of us having to go to them. It's a little bit like living in a dorm again, but with more space and lots more money.

I guess it only works if everyone is easygoing and conscientious about sharing chores, groceries, and of course, the TV remote, but luckily everyone has been, so I've been very much enjoying our setup. I'm excited about our house being finished soon and being able to invite people over again, but I will definitely miss some aspects of communal living.

the official 35 before 35

Alright, I'm done with my list! I will consider it a success if I achieve 30 of these goals. (They are listed in semi-alphabetical order; I've numbered them just for future reference.)

1. attend (and possibly ride in) BYOBW
2. bike to work
3. buy dining room furniture (the poker table does not count)
4. cook live crab or lobster
5. cook something for longer than two hours
6. do an unassisted pullup
7. do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
8. do not buy a new car
9. drive across the country
10. eat at Alinea
11. eat fugu (puffer fish)
12. finish a photo project
13. fly first class
14. get scuba-certified
15. go houseboating
16. grow a plant for three months without killing it
17. hike Half Dome
18. hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim
19. host a multi-course dinner party
20. host Thanksgiving dinner
21. landscape the backyard
22. learn to knit
23. learn to put on eye makeup properly
24. make spaghetti sauce from home-grown tomatoes
25. master a bread-from-scratch recipe
26. move the rest of my stuff out of my parents' house
27. plan an awesome 35th birthday party
28. put up holiday decorations
29. run a half marathon
30. see the Northern Lights
31. see the polar bears of Churchill
32. ski a new destination (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho...?)
33. try indoor skydiving
34. visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
35. write an Android app

Looks like I better get cracking...

eww

I realize it's just a meme (about purses, of all things), but I'm still kind of disturbed that my 16-year-old cousin's status says "I like it against the wall".

Then again, now that I think about it, people said and did much more suggestive and/or outright raunchy things throughout high school. I'm so old.

35 before 35

I was recently inspired by a "30 before 30" list made by a coworker. Unfortunately I'm already past 30, but I started writing a "35 before 35" list instead. The first ten or so were easy, but it's taking some time to put together the rest.

As a teaser, my top five were:
- run a half marathon
- get scuba-certified
- eat at Alinea
- hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim
- see the polar bears of Churchill

I think I may have to be less ambitious for some of the rest. Stay tuned...

Baume

A couple of weeks ago I went with some of my coworkers to Baume (apparently it's pronounced "bau-MEH"), a new molecular gastronomy place in Palo Alto. I'm a little surprised about the location (on California Avenue); it seems more the kind of thing that would do better in the city, but it made it convenient for a weeknight dinner.

The restaurant isn't very large, and the four of us were seated in a small room with maybe five other tables. The atmosphere was a little hush-hush for my taste, although I think we livened it up a bit after we got there.

Baume offers three menus: five courses, ten courses, and fifteen courses. Each has an optional wine pairing. We quickly decided to go for the full fifteen, and a few of us (not me) were initially tempted by the wine pairing, but decided against when the waiter described it as "75% whites". We got some cocktails instead.

The menu is not very specific; it just lists some ingredients that are likely to be used in the courses, so that diners can point out allergies and/or other preferences:


The cocktails were pricey but I was glad I ordered one; mine was a passionfruit sake drink with little "pearls" of passionfruit in it that burst when you bit them. It was very fun to drink and reminded me a little bit of bubble tea. Even more visually stunning was this grape sake drink, which had the same pearls (in grape) but also had liquid-nitrogen-frozen grape sorbet on top:


The amuse was a tiny bit of scallop sashimi with soy and passionfruit pearls. It was tasty but very small:


There was no bread basket, but we were offered a total of four different types of bread at two instances during the evening. My favorite was this walnut bread which was served with a "choc-olive":


Basically, the olive was processed into the shape of a chocolate truffle, and the server recommended we spread the whole thing across the bread. I found this made the bread too salty, and I scraped some of it off. I'd chosen the black olive and wondered if that was the problem, but my coworker who had the green olive said the same.

The first real course was comprised mostly of red beet bubbles, with goat cheese and pinenuts on the side. It was fun to look at, but hard to eat once the bubbles started to collapse. This may have been my fault for spending several minutes taking photos of the dish. Both the goat cheese and the pinenuts were quite strong in flavor and I felt like the beet flavor got overwhelmed a bit.


Next up was a duck, shiso, and kabocha soup. Initially we were given just a bowl of smoked duck bits and duck lardo:


The servers quickly added a scoop of frozen shiso, and then poured the kabocha soup on top:


The final product wasn't that interesting to look at, but it was quite tasty; the flavors went together well, and I could have eaten the duck bits all night:


Next up was sauteed abalone with citron foam and green apple "wasabi":


I liked the sauteed abalone by itself very much, but I'm not sure the foam and the apple added that much to the dish. I tire quickly of foam and bubbles, though.

This was one of the dishes that I had heard about previously, from another coworker who had already eaten at Baume; he said it was one of his favorites. It's called "62-degree egg" and is literally an egg perfectly cooked at 62 degrees for an extended period of time. It was served with lobster mushrooms and tarragon sauce. I dislike egg yolks but have to admit this dish was very well executed. I even ate most of it:


The foie gras torchon was served with pineapple and a bubble of cinnamon foam. I liked the cinnamon but the pineapple flavor was too strong. The foie gras itself was tasty served on toast points, but as usual I let others finish my portion:


I liked this matsutake trio but others found it bland. It was a very simple dish:


The server called this palate cleanser "gaspachio" but it was mostly sweet, with more flavored pearls and brandy foam. It was nice but by this time I was starting to get tired of the pearls:


Next up was a leek farcie with arctic char mousse and shaved truffles:


Luckily I had asked for substitutions for any dishes involving cooked fish, so I was served this vegetarian dish instead. It had figs, carrots, and other greens, as well as the truffles:


The vegetables were fresh and flavorful and I enjoyed the dish but wasn't amazed.

Our second palate cleanser was a rosemary nitro-foam. The server scooped little bits of frozen rosemary foam into wooden spoons for us, one by one, so that they would be good and cold when we consumed them. Eating the "foam" was quite interesting; visible cold steam/smoke came out of my nose and the bits were cold and crunchy on my tongue:


The meat dishes started with this "cochon au lait" (basically pork belly), served with sliced apple, armagnac sauce, and a prune. Everyone else liked this but I thought the pork was drier than it should have been:


My favorite course was this grass-fed filet with summer truffle saveur. We were pretty sure the filet must have been done sous vide as to achieve the perfectly even degree of cooked-ness, and it was seasoned perfectly; not too salty and not too peppery, so the meat flavor could take center stage:


The desserts started with a cheese course. The cheese was served with "honey caviar" which was basically the same pearls done with honey:


The bottom-most cheese was a Petit Basque which I liked a lot, and the top one was a Point Reyes blue; also very good. The middle one was fine but unremarkable. The slightly bitter taste of the watercress went quite well with the cheeses; I'll have to remember that for future reference:


At this point we were served a second amuse; a sweet one this time. It was comprised of lychee bits with chocolate and passionfruit pearls:


I liked this amuse very much; even more than the first one. (Then again, I love sweets.)

All three of the desserts came out together, which I thought was kind of strange. One was a combination of lychee and passionfruit, in which the lychee was processed and frozen. This was my favorite of the three:


The most fragile one (which we were told to eat first) was a caramel foam freeze which was topped by chocolate ganache syrup. I'm not sure the chocolate sauce was very necessary. (This photo was taken before the syrup was added.)


The last dessert was a fig and nut concoction. Again, the individual bits were yummy, but I'm not sure that it all came together very well. That didn't stop me from finishing it, though.


Finally, we were served mignardises of strawberry daiquiri spheres on tiny financiers. The spheres were delicious, and tasted exactly like strawberry daiquiri. I liked the presentation, too:


The last little treat was a packet of homemade marshmallows. We debated awhile and decided the flavors were green tea, grape, and probably orange or citrus. We did think marshmallows were an odd choice for such a fancy restaurant, but they were packaged up nicely, at least:


Closing thoughts...I thought that the food presentation was among the most spectacular of the restaurants that I've visited. Unfortunately, I also thought that they reused the same techniques a bit too much; nearly every dish had some kind of "pearl" or "caviar", there were lots of uses of liquid nitrogen, and there were several dishes that were heavy on foam. Taste-wise I thought both WD-50 and Moto were more consistently delicious, but Baume was perhaps more ambitious (definitely less subtle) than WD-50 at least. Also, the super-quiet atmosphere was a little stifling at first, although that may have been partially because we had such an early (6:30pm) reservation.

In conclusion, it was a fun meal and I'm glad that I went, but I probably won't be returning anytime soon, especially given the price tag and all the other restaurants on my to-try list.