| Easies dinner ever |
[Jan. 31st, 2006|10:14 am] |
Back to blogging after a long vacation.
EASIEST SEMI-GOURMET DINNER EVER
Go to Trader Joe's and buy:
- Moroccan Simmer Sauce (1 jar per person, minimum 2)
- Fresh chicken
- Frozen cooked brown rice (box contains 3 packets, 1 packet serves 3)
- Baby spinach/mushroom/blueberry/cranberry/dijon-vinaigrette salad-in-bar (1 bag serves 3)
Morning of dinner:
- Pour a jar of Simmer Sauce into crockpot
- Add chicken
- Pour the rest of your jars of Simmer Sauce over it
- Put on lid and switch on at Low heat
- Optional: add sliced yellow squash (I didn't try this, but I think it would go well)
Just before dinner:
- Assemble salads, except for dressing
- Thaw/warm brown rice in microwave
- Set table, put sauce in gravy boat
To serve:
- Mound brown rice on center of plate
- Chicken on top of rice
- Sauce over everything
- Serve it
Beverage:
- Chilled sparkling water is a nice contrast to the warmth and spices of the dish.
- If serving wine, I'd probably choose something in the fruity-red category. |
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| Halloween |
[Nov. 1st, 2005|08:45 am] |
It was a light evening; it seemed to me that we distributed only half the candy we usually do. We're in a high-kid-population neighborhood so that's still a fair amount, but we have pounds and pounds left.
I suspect it was largely the Monday-night effect - some people probably Halloweened all weekend - plus the time change making everyone sleepy a little earlier. But we got some great visitors: a terrific Incredible Violet Parr, a fully-costumed 4-foot Darth Vader, a very thoroughly wrapped Mummy, and a whole crew of kids made up for the Mexican Day of the Dead.
As usual, our house was a minor hit. We don't do all that much, but we have a bubbling cauldron with green lights and a smoke generator inside, an alternately hissing and purring robot cat, and a few other simple but effective ghoulish things to provide atmosphere. When kids are too busy looking around the room to look at the candy bowl I'm holding out, I know I've scored.
The light traffic made for a really nice sit-down dinner with Katie and Brien, who came over early in the evening. As dinner ended we brought out a cake and champagne and sang Happy Birthday to Kristiana (whose birthday is today, so we were cheating a little), who surprisingly was surprised. All in all, a good evening. |
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| Night on the town, disorganized homebody version |
[Oct. 29th, 2005|11:41 am] |
We saw Sarah Vowell's show in Redwood City with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) dactyl last night. The original plan - to the extent that we had a plan
- was to meet at a nearby Mediterranean restaurant, but I took a wrong
turn on foot, we didn't find it, and Plan B was just to grab a seat at
the nearest restaurant that had three of them open.
That turned out to be a Sicilian place with six notable attributes:
- LOUD singer
- loud patrons
- pretty good food
- pretty slow service
- LOUD singer
- singer that was LOUD.
While
were enjoying - if I may bend the term - the first couple of songs and
the wait for our wine, I looked around the room. There was a Sicilian
map on the opposite wall, flanked by two enormous pointilist paintings
that looked far more like Venice than like any portion of Sicily that I
saw while circumnavigating most of the island's coast one summer. This
caused me to doubt their wholehearted commitment to Sicilian
authenticity, an impression that was reinforced moments later when the
singer switched from what I had imagined to be Sicilian standards to
something more familiar. As he crooned "Iiiii left myyyyyy
hearrrrrrttt, in..." I began to speculate what would come next.
Palermo? Too short. Taormina? The ashes of Mount Etna? But no, it was
of course "Saaaan Franciiiiisssco." This was followed by "Volare" - in
Italian at least - and several more from the Frank Sinatra songbook.
Frank's not Sicilian! (Though we hear he hung around with some.)
As our dinners were served he broke into "Unchained Melody," which
Kristiana particularly dislikes and which set several people to dancing
(there was no room for dancing but this scarcely made a difference
admidst the general disorganization of the restaurant, which I will say
reminded me exactly of the traffic flow at rush hour in
Palermo, perhaps the most authentic note of the evening). Time was
running short by then and he had to eat in a hurry. Eventually, though
it took four attempts to get our check, and three assurances that it
was coming soon, we made our escape and headed up the street to see
Sarah.
Her show, while enjoyable, was not the highlight I hoped it would be.
She read a piece she'd written years ago about Rosa Parks (more
precisely about people who compare themselves to Rosa Parks,
among them Katherine Harris), and one about taking Goth lessons at
Halloween in San Francisco. She reads well; she's a lot of fun. But
speaking extemporaneously is not her strong suit, and that's part of
what a live performance is. She didn't introduce her readings well, nor
was she particularly in command as she took questions (though she did
speak with intelligence and insight). Perhaps she's just trying too
hard to avoid quoting her written work; I don't know. Don't get me
wrong, it was a good show, but not all I was hoping for.
From there we walked dactyl back to her cuuuuuute new ice-blue Mini
Cooper S convertible. Neat, neat car. Dac, I didn't know this until you
drove off, but I really like the engine sound too. |
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| Subject? I gotta have a subject? |
[Oct. 28th, 2005|08:23 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Coffeegeek podcast | ] |
It is taking a while to copy some files, so hello journal.
I wonder if I have caught a cold -- had kind of a random sweating thing going on yesterday, wound up skipping the gym this AM. Bummed.
Kristiana reminded me the other night that she really wants a new mask and snorkel for the Mexico trip in January. It's not nice to do that with a birthday less than a week away -- particularly since I already had them. Went downstairs to fetch them and presented them on the spot so she'd know I hadn't just panicked and rush-ordered them. She was impressed. Fortunately I have additional loot awaiting her that she doesn't know about yet.
We spent last Sunday morning at Barefoot together, which was really fun. I had just come down off the Dish and was just arriving there when K called and said she was awake -- unnaturally early for her on a Sunday -- so she drove over to meet me. Kristiana's a couch person and I'm a table person and Barefoot has both, so we compromised, her on couch with her book, and me at an adjoining table whose second seat isn't really usable since it sticks into the flow of traffic (also because that second seat is the musical chair -- built with violin parts, strung, and equipped with a bow should you want to play it). Different barista that morning, a compact asiatic woman I'll call Swimmer because she reminds me of an old friend. Her drinks were very good, among them a seasonal special known as Monster's Ball, four shots of espresso, a ton of chocolate, possibly some milk, and whip on top. I ordered a decaf but it still got me wired as anything.
Tonight we have tickets to Sarah Vowell in Redwood City. I need to pick a restaurant. |
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| Hey why is the |
[Oct. 20th, 2005|09:39 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  surprised | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Depeche Mode "It doesn't matter" | ] |
micon for "surprised" a happy face? I didn't say "happy." I just said "surprised."
Is there some programmer or software designer out there in the world for whom every surprise is happy? No, there is not. I know software, and there is no way. So whose idea was this? |
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| First reply and first troll |
[Oct. 20th, 2005|08:47 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | surprised | ] |
| [ | music |
| | R. Carlos Nakai | ] |
Happily not the same.
I'm discreet about posting most things, but was a little less so in some recent coffee reviews. A barista posted a reply, my first on LJ. It was very gracious. But it was followed a few hours later by one -- by someone the first poster had listed as a friend -- that was nothing more than a dumb troll.
I always knew that theoretically people I don't know who get mentioned in my LJ might come across posts about them, but it's an odd feeling the first time it actually happens. |
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| Back to Barefoot |
[Oct. 19th, 2005|10:08 am] |
|
I take back every uncomplimentary thing I said or thought about WB Extra. She has just pulled me two outstanding decaf espresso shots in a row. I am happy. |
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| "Like we say in Armenian, 'de quelque chose, le malheur est bon'" |
[Oct. 15th, 2005|11:36 am] |
said my barber Aram yesterday. Loosely translated, "sometimes misfortune is for the best."*
...so Stacey, of my PostalOne! team, was laid off this week. She's out on maternity leave, but her leave has been figured in to her termination date, length of severance pay, etc. And I say, brava, Stacey. You'll be much happier, much sooner. Like David, Jack, and me.
Aram wasn't talking about USPS, he was talking about some nearby noisy and inconvenient construction which seemed to have abated the housefly problem in his barbershop. But the principle still applies.
Also this week my back went out. I haven't figured out the silver lining in that one yet. I'm pretty annoyed at myself. Wednesday Hollis mentioned that his back was messed up, and I told him the only time that happens to me is when I'm sick or coming down with something. Thursday I was feeling lousy -- headache, sore throat -- and went home early. I should have taken extra-good care of myself but, duh, I went to the gym Friday morning. Even though I warmed up first with stretches and elliptical, in the first minute of my real workout, pow, shooting pain.
I should have gone home to ice it, but we have a product launch on Monday, and I had a major chunk of new functionality still to implement and get into peoples' hands. And I needed to stick close to the office in case Hollis hit any snags integrating his stuff with my stuff. So I exacerbated the back problem with a day of hardcore coding.
As a result I'm in very poor shape today, and not feeling mobile enough to do much of anything. Go to the De Young reopening? Better not. Menlo Park art festival and the reopened Kepler's? Better not. Clean the house, which needs it badly at the moment? Very doubtful.
*and if the Armenian looks suspiciously like French, it's because Aram's Armenian parents raised him in France. |
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| More tales of espresso |
[Oct. 7th, 2005|07:48 am] |
Yesterday I at last visited Barefoot, which is pretty much universally acclaimed on CoffeeGeek.
Well, it was pretty good. But my review is mixed.
The atmosphere of the place is perfect for me. You can feel equally comfortable working on your laptop*, as I was, or chatting with a group of friends. There are ample tables and chairs, and a couch or two. The tables outside are positioned so that smokers outside don't smell up the inside. It's spacious and not noisy. On the downside, here's another place that cling-wraps its bread products.
Production runs several minutes behind ordering, or at least it did on this day, with relatively few people. They really seem to be taking the time to make each drink right. My first order was for a "big" espresso (that's what they had up on the menu board: big and small (or little, I forget which)). There were three or four orders stacked up before it, and it didn't come for a good ten or fifteen minutes. Glad I brought my laptop.
Eventually it was ready, or seemed to be. They don't ask your name or give you a number when you order, so it's pretty much up to you to figure out which order is yours.
I think my barista, a tall scrubbed-looking blond I'll call WB Extra, was new. I went to the counter and asked, "Is that my big espresso?"
"Big? You mean double?"
"I don't know. You're the one who put 'big' on the menu board. Is big a double?"
She looked defensive. Or confused. Or defensively confused. "I didn't put big on the menu board."
The fellow who'd taken my order, nodding hard, caught her eye. Yes, big is a double.
Okay. I took my big double espresso and went back to my table. It was good-looking: small (very ristretto, it seemed), crema that was dark and almost toasted-looking that clung to the sides of the cup, dark black liquid. Aroma was OK but it didn't really pop. The taste was OK, certainly not bitter or bad, but it too didn't really pop. No magic. Not a destination espresso.
But everybody raves about the place, and I suspect WB Extra was new. So no final verdict yet on Barefoot's espresso.
Not ready to leave, I ordered a "mocha Borgia," a mocha with added orange essence and a little orange zest. It was very good, and demonstrated that Extra, while not the mistress of the shot, has serious chops with milk drinks. Kristiana's tastes would be well served here. Oh, and they sell their roasts, like a Guatemalan peaberry that I aim to try as soon as I get close to the end of my Tanzanian. I'll be back.
*it barely bears mentioning any more, but they have free WiFi. |
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| Another bitter disappointment |
[Oct. 4th, 2005|07:15 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  disappointed | ] |
Since I've such a long way to go in chronicling all that's happened since my last journal entry, I'm just going to resume blogging with trivia instead.
I've just returned from Global Blends, which had gotten good reviews on CoffeeGeek.com. I've been searching, in a halfhearted way, for good local espresso (maybe not up to the standards of beloved Caffe D'Arte in Seattle, but, you know, decent), with only a tiny bit of success. The espresso heavyweight in Silicon Valley is widely considered to be Barefoot, but it's fairly out of my way, and doesn't open until 7; I haven't been there yet. Global Blends is on the main drag in Mountain View, not far from here, and opens at 6.
My first shot -- double decaf espresso -- was prepared by a barista I'll call Skateboard Dude. He hesitated a while, as if waiting for someone, so I suspect that generally he operates the till and leaves it to the other fellow, whom I'll call Rocker Dude, to pull the shots. Anyway, he did a technically competent job: grind fresh for the order, serious tamping (none of this patting-a-baby-on-the-head nonexistent tamping that I see in so many local places), and a double shot that filled a demitasse -- well-heated on top of the machine -- only halfway.
Unfortunately it just didn't taste good. Little distinctive espresso flavor, and on the bitter side.
This made me sad. I hoped I had found my local espresso provider, but this clearly wasn't it. But based on the good reviews, I thought I should try again; this time non-decaf. I placed a second order, and this time Rocker Dude pulled the shot. Same promising technical moves, same bitter disappointment. As I took the cup I got a whiff of distinctive espresso scent, but only a whiff. After that it was frankly just dark black same-old same-old.
As I was leaving, another fellow came in and headed behind the bar. A little older, a lot more clean-cut. I'll call him iPod Messenger Bag Guy. Maybe he's the real shot-puller. I'll probably give the place another try someday and find out.
More about the place:
The atmosphere leans young. Skateboard Dude and Rocker Dude were both in the very low 20's, if that. One of the patrons was maybe 13, long hair, black shirt, sullen-looking. And you know, if I were that, it's probably where I would go for coffee too. I was just in jeans, running shoes, and a polo shirt, and I felt conspicuously over-tidy at Global Blends, at least at that time of day.
The pastry leans heavily toward gluten-free banana breads and suchlike. I had to avoid these since they were seriously laden with walnuts. (The zucchini cake looked like it was filled not just with walnuts, but expensive black walnuts. I'm not in a position to try it, but I suspect it was all very good.) But all the pastries are kept in plastic wrap. I suspect my croissant was on the bready side to begin with, but overnight (or longer) in wrap had taken out the remainder of whatever flakiness or crunch it might have had. Sigh.
My one good espresso locally has been at the Peet's in the Piazza's shopping center at Charleston and Middlefield in Palo Alto. It was a Saturday morning, and I didn't have the presence of mind to memorize the barista; I think a skinny black woman, but I'm not sure. It was very good, the first actual satisfaction I've enjoyed since Seattle. I've tended to avoid Peet's because they 'feature' a different espresso blend every day, but darn it, this woman could pull a shot. When I went back Sunday, I got a different barista and an indifferent shot. But the shot was still s small one, not one of these four-ounce monstrosities (like the one served me recently by Surfer Dude at the Town & Country Peet's), so I suspect the store owner at Charleston is at least making some attempts at espresso education. They're close by, so I'll visit from time to time and see if I can find Saturday's barista again. |
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