a day in san francisco

Yesterday James and I went for a walk and I took along my new camera. The photo below was taken two blocks from my house. I cannot even tell you how much I love living in San Francisco.


Here's James in front of a shop on Haight where it seems they will know how to communicate with him:


Holding hands with his new friend:


Detail from a mural:


This very, very large bird was just a little dark spot from where we were standing, but the sooper dooper digital telephoto lens even lets us see his mottled feathers and his pointy pointy beak and toes. Just one of many awesome features.


Fall produce is pretty:






What's the point of walking past 18th and Dolores if you're not going to stop for some Bi-Rite ice cream? I didn't like the way the sunshine was washing out the C on the sign, so I just captured the REAM part. REAM!


More nice signage in the Mission:



In addition to seeing all these nice sights, we had breakfast at Herbivore, lunch at Papalote, and dinner at Tsunami. Have I mentioned I love living in San Francisco? Also, it's a good thing that we walked 8 miles.

mmmmm cake

Last night Amanda, Alex, Matt, and Other Karen B. came over for dinner. I made another chocolate nut cake and this one actually came out MORE delicious than the previous one. Plus I used a different stencil. I'm sure that made a difference.

can't talk; eating

Gluten-free lemon blueberry muffins. Dudes, these are so yummy. I would not lie to you.



Here's some gluten free quinoa spinach stuff. It is also super duper yummy. It's based on this recipe from the Karina's Kitchen blog. I added feta cheese.



Everything's better with good wine.



Tomorrow there will be guacamole and black bean/sweet potato enchiladas.

gettin' german wit' it

I am going to another wine tasting dinner tomorrow, and this time I signed up to make the dessert. I said I'd bring German apple cake, and then this afternoon I got all nostalgic for German plum cake, so I made one of those too. It will be interesting to lug these to the East Bay on BART tomorrow night at rush hour, along with an overnight bag and a bottle of wine.



Did I mention that a couple of months ago we were tasting Portuguese reds, and I ended up volunteering to cook a dish called açorda de camarão for 10 people? In someone else's kitchen, and not having cooked said dish in well over a decade? Luckily it didn't suck.

There is no real point to this post other than maybe to make y'all jealous and/or hungry.

there is no 'karen' in 'team'

Today my company is having a work outing involving a scavenger hunt that winds up at whatever mystery restaurant it is where they will then provide lunch. Now, I enjoy a scavenger hunt as much as the next person...wait a minute, NO I DON'T. At least not unless the next person hates them with the heat of a thousand flaming effigies of whoever came up with the idea of sending a hundred or so full-grown professional e-discovery specialists on a scavenger hunt. There were going to be teams, people...TEAMS. Sweet peanut butter jesus, I would rather spend the day participating in role-playing skits and trust exercises with a herd of evangelical Christians. Luckily that wasn't the company-sanctioned alternative option; the alternative option was to take a mandatory PTO day, which is what I did. So I've been spending a relaxing morning knitting Latvian-style mittens,


baking vegan banana-cranberry-pecan bread,


watching old episodes of The L-Word on Netflix, and talking on the phone with my mother.

OK, that last part was not so relaxing, particularly once I discovered that she (and presumably my father also) is planning to vote yes on California Proposition 8, because she is "old-fashioned." I mean, OK...I guess homophobia is old-fashioned. Mom also thinks Sarah Palin is "spunky," expressed with an enthusiasm that indicates she believes spunkiness is a necessary and sufficient condition for running the third-largest country in the world. I can't believe I am related to these people. And they wonder why I rarely call or visit.

Moving right along so I don't start screaming again, last week I finally checked out the first two seasons of 30 Rock, and oh. my. freaking. god. it is so excellent. I was laughing out loud alone in my apartment at numerous points. Then on one episode there was a scene where I thought to myself, wow, that looks exactly like the street where my friend/fellow MEOWkitty Lori lives. I dismissed it as a hillbilly perception that all residential streets in Manhattan look the same, but then I remembered that about 18 months ago I was visiting Lori and there were signs on her street restricting parking the next day...because of filming for some show I'd never heard of called 30 Rock. Then in a later scene I figured out that the Tina Fey character "lives" around the corner from Lori.

Since I'm talking about the MEOWkitty knitters...the other day I realized that among the 14 people in the group, we have five people with published designs in books, magazines, or both; the host of an HGTV knitting show; two people (besides the host) who've appeared on the show; and the assistant pattern editor of a major knitting magazine. Seriously, the MEOWkitty knitting mojo is off the charts. Even the people who prefer not to design or to work in the industry have insane skills, and plus they're all crazy smart and funny. I [HEART] YOU, MEOWERS!

sux et veritas

Back in early July I wrote a little about the naming of Lynx, the project we're wrapping up right now. Our engagement director Dan and his wife conveniently scheduled the arrival of their baby (and Dan's consequent paternity leave) to coincide with only the last couple days of the project, but Baby Diego had other plans and decided to show up about 10 days early. I wanted to get a lynx-themed baby card to send to them from the team, but Hallmark inexplicably has not yet taken advantage of this potentially lucrative niche market, and so I had to make a card myself, third-grader style, with felt tipped pens and card stock. Please note that it is a baby lynx peeking out of the bundle:



Speaking of little bobcats, James and I hiked at Tomales Point on Saturday and get a load of what we saw there:





We also saw lots of Tule Elk, but those are totally par for the course in the Point Reyes area so those weren't as exciting somehow. Plus they don't have fangs or claws, and Dan and I don't have a running joke about them.

The excitement continued on Saturday night when I realized about $1500 had evaporated from my checking account via fraudulent PayPal transfers. As is typical, James came to the rescue and applied his mad Internet forensics skillz to ascertain that the breach had occurred not via my home machine (which is a Mac behind two firewalls, so that was unlikely anyway), and not via PayPal per se, but via the "junior high school level" (no, James, tell us how you really feel) security protocols in place at my grad school alumni association--whose forwarding email alias I have long used and which unfortunately was also my PayPal login ID. The details are not terribly interesting and I should be getting all my money back within a few days, but this all just goes to show that if you are such a pretentious tool that you want to have a fancypants Ivy League school in your email address, you should probably just go for YaleTool at gmail dot com or some such--because while the Elis are great at winning squash tournaments and coming up with clever Latin slogans to shout at football games, apparently they know fuckall about web security.

Before all that went down, however, we stopped at Pizzeria Picco in Larkspur and had a fabulous meal after our long hike among the elk. Picco had recently been written up in the New York Times for its soft serve ice cream, and their pizza is nothing to complain about either. My favorite was the Marin, which is a white pie with paper-thin baby red potato slices and rosemary. Picco is only about 10 miles north of the city, so if you're a San Franciscan and have a car you should totally get your ass up there ASAP. I have five words for you: Scharffen Berger chocolate soft serve.

half assed

James and I are signed up to racewalk the 2nd Half Marathon portion of the San Francisco Marathon tomorrow. As I believe I mentioned earlier in these pages, I chose to do the second half mainly because it starts a couple of hours later and the starting line is a lot closer to my house. In other words, I am willing to do a half marathon but I am too lazy to get up early or travel more than a mile or two to get to it. There is something wrong with this picture but I can't be bothered to invest any further thought in it.

Last night I was having such a good time reading through documents at work that I made James take the bus downtown to meet me for dinner. We ended up going to Millennium and eating at the bar. James's dessert was spiced chocolate zucchini cake with corn ice cream. I can't say I approve of corn ice cream, but he seemed to enjoy it.

soup and nuts

As per usual here in Geeksville we are watching Planet Earth on Blu-Ray and drinking yummy wine (Ravenswood Early Harvest 2007 Gerwurtztraminer).

Dinner was kalamata olive bread and the edamame soup recently discussed at 101 Cookbooks. Modifications: used pine nuts instead of peanuts to garnish, and finished it with soy creamer rather than crème fraîche, which was running $5.99 for a little tub at Whole Foods and I'll be damned if I pay that just to dollop two tablespoons of it into a pot of soup (because I am sure James would never use the rest, and I am returning to San Francisco tomorrow morning). Three dollars per tablespoon (crème fraîche) is almost as ridiculous as ~25 per block (peafowl; see below).

The only additional inappropriate animals I have seen so far today besides the peafowl have been some deer. Well, unless you count lizards. Always with the lizards.

Our exciting afternoon included an ALL CAPS shopping excursion, with a stop by REI and a trip to the IKEA in West Covina. My favorite new IKEA product is their animal cracker-style cookies that are formed in the shapes of the letters I, K, E, and A. Ah, those self-absorbed Swedes...why is it so hard to resist them? Is there something in those lingonberries that we don't know about? Such as CRACK?

dot org

Slooooooowly I am getting my crap organized here at the ol' apartmansion. It's not all that exciting for anyone but me, but since Dan gives me crap on a daily basis about not posting, you may blame him for this lame update. Email me if you want his phone number.

The Craft Cavern is getting both tidier and craftier:



Knitters need abundant sweater storage space:



The pile of boxes behind the Freakin' Adorable Teak Chair is gradually diminshing (there were twice as many boxes piled there this morning...one of them full of *ahem* approximately 20 pairs of shoes):



Here's my fave accomplishment of the morning--hanging my kitty on the door to the storage room. I love it that when I took the photo, the little face recognition feature framed the kitty's face.



I made vegan brownies last night. Rick, if he is reading, will be pleased to hear this was made possible in part because I re-re-rearranged my cookbooks so that they are once again in the normal, accessible configuration.



Speaking of redoing shit, I did indeed have to start over on my Luna Moth shawl after my ill-advised ambien- and wine- and jet lag-influenced first attempt. Now it is moving right along:



For the non-knitters: this will get wet blocked once it is off the needles, and the pattern will become much more flat and distinct. See here and here for examples.

When I'm too tired for lace knitting, I work on this cardigan. I'm using a silk and lambswool blend in a camouflage-y color.

Again, blame Dan.

a couch. i has one.

It's back to home dec updates, peeps. Today I finally got to pick up the couch and chair cushions I ordered in April:





I used my Chirp dishes for the first time the other night. The rims of the plates match the walls of my dining nook. It is pretty cool.



This is a pasta dish I made up, involving tomatoes, mushrooms, baby spinach, and a secret ingredient that rhymes with, um...whoregonzola.

golden gate...into old age and decrepitude

So, I thought I'd be all hot shit and racewalk a half marathon the week before I turned forty just to show the world that India has not totally kicked my ass and turned me into a lame, out-of-shape, depressed middle-aged lady. So I went this morning to the Golden Gate Headlands half marathon, only to discover that India has totally kicked my ass and turned me into a lame, out-of-shape, depressed middle-aged lady.

Here is the event-name-appropriate view on the way to the race:


Did I mention that maybe I should have paid attention to the fact that this was not an ordinary, flat-streets-of-a-city type race, but rather a steep, rocky trail run with 2,200 ft of elevation change?



The vistas were admittedly lovely, when you could see them through the tears of pain and despair:


I did finish and all, but it took 3 1/2 freakin' hours (about an hour longer than it took me to do the Seattle Half Marathon just four months ago).

Anyhoo. Not my finest moment, but I did use it to justify eating a burrito afterwards. Speaking of food, someone please tell me why I thought paying $10 for three pints of gorgeous organic strawberries at the farmer's market on Thursday was a good idea.
Because it turns out that when you pay $10 for three pints of strawberries, you later realize that OHMYGOD I HAVE TO COME UP WITH A WAY TO USE UP THREE PINTS OF STRAWBERRIES WITHIN TWO DAYS OR ELSE I HAVE WASTED $10 AND I HAVE A MORTGAGE NOW FOR CHRISSAKE WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING? So, I am in the process of making vegan strawberry ice cream and a strawberry banana cake based on this vegan muffin recipe. Because eating a boatload of ice cream and baked goods is sure to assist me on the road to an improved self-image.

In better news, I was uninvited to a meeting Monday morning that would have required arriving at work at 7:30 a.m. on a day where I have calls scheduled until 10:45 at night. Sometimes it's good not to be a big shot.

color theory

Just in case any of you out there thought I wasn't dorky enough to color coordinate my cookbook shelf, I would like to prove you wrong:



My apartment is slowly coming together a bit. Here is the dining area. I'd originally planned to get a Saarinen pedestal table, but ended up getting this square thing at IKEA and saving...wait for it...$1369. Because that sucker was on sale for $39.99, people. THIRTY NINE NINETY NINE. And I can spill stuff on it without freaking out, because did I mention it cost THIRTY NINE NINETY NINE?


That red box is my microwave, by the way.

And now you should go out and buy the ingredients to make Caramelized Tofu, because damn that's good eatin'.

vegan sushi!

Tonight I made vegan sushi for dinner. That's all I have to report.

progress reportage

I actually got some work done in the home improvement department this weekend, despite being jet lagged off my ass. I've painted my dining area:


And I've set up my Reading Area of Clashing Animal Prints:


However, most of the apartment still looks a little something like this:

Today I also went to a Danish antiques place in Emeryville and bought myself a rad teak credenza. I don't have a photo of the one I bought, but this one is almost identical:


It will go perfectly with the Danish teak couch, chair, and coffee table my parents bought in 1964 and which I've recently charmed them out of.

Tonight I made Heidi Swanson's Tasty Asparagus and Brown Rice, except with quinoa instead of rice. It was veganlicious. I guess that doesn't really count as home improvement. But it's a vast improvement over what I get to eat in India, so there you go--I just made this post on topic, did you see how I did that?

Oh, and also I am now a brunette:


It's exactly like being a blond, except with brown hair.

snack attack

I am not a fussy eater. I mean, yes, I try to stay vegan, which means there are a lot of things (namely, any and all animal-derived products) I don’t eat, but it’s not because I am fussy about eating-- it’s because I have made a choice about not eating those things, and the choice has nothing to do with taste, texture, Germanic childhood memories of tongue sausage with gleaming white chunks of fat floating amidst the blood pudding filler (I’m not making this up), etc. That is why it makes me crazy like a drunken David Hasselhoff whenever I see, for the eleventy-gazillionth time, hostile comments from trolls on vegan/vegetarian sites asking why we think it’s perfectly OK to eat mock meat when we are supposed to be all, like, you know, anti-meat and stuff, and isn’t that totally hypocritical or beside the point or whatever? Dear troll: I do not eschew bacon because I think it tastes bad. Everyone knows that bacon is the crispy nectar of the gods, but unfortunately it also involves the extremely unpleasant life and death of a pig, and that is something I am not willing to condone just so I can have a cracklin’ good breakfast. Your ethical mileage may vary, but stop giving me shit about my own choices, and judging me for enjoying tempeh bacon or seitan chicken--because much like that unfortunate pig, you do not have a leg to stand on.

Anyway, so when I say I am not fussy, I mean that if something’s vegan, I will eat it. No “Eww, not green bell peppers!” or “Mushrooms are gross!” and so on. But this country is trying my patience, despite its large vegetarian population. Allow me to introduce to you the four Indian vegetarian food groups:

Plain yogurt
Mysterious green vegetables swimming in oil and spices
Yellow legumes swimming in oil and spices
White rice

Oh, and flour mixed with water and fried, sometimes also referred to as bread. So, five.

Since I can’t take this anymore, and because our kitchen equipment both sucks and blows (what’s that dark fleck? Oh, part of the “non-stick” coating! I guess I shouldn’t actually stir my stir-fry), my daily food intake for the past few weeks has consisted almost exclusively of some combination of the following:

Apples
Toast
Tofu
Peanut Butter
Bananas
Cereal with almond or soy milk
Vodka

There are two kinds of vodka here, by the way: locally produced versions of bottom shelf name brands (Smirnoff, e.g.), and Out of Your Price Range (a.k.a. Drinkable). Misti and I bought a bottle of local citrus Smirnoff last month and put it in the freezer. You know how vodka gets sludgy but not frozen, because of the alcohol content? Well, Indian vodka freezes. Solid. And to make up for the almost nonexistent alcohol content, it tastes like shit.

OK, I haven’t actually been drinking vodka for dinner, mainly for the reasons noted directly above (because otherwise I’d be totally on it). But it added a little pizzazz to the list, didn’t it?

Home in 8 days.

nigella, i wish i could quit you

One of the three or so tolerable TV stations we get here at the apartment is Discovery Travel & Living, and all I have to say is that if I hear this woman say "juice" or "juicy" ONE MORE TIME I think I may have to go on a murderous rampage:



I'd heard of Ms. Lawson before, of course, but I'd never seen her show till the other night when Misti and I caught the tail end of an episode that was all about craving sweet carbs at midnight and whipping yourself up a quick pan of Doughnut French Toast. At first we thought she meant she was making French toast OUT OF DOUGHNUTS, which made us shout at the TV, "Why don't you just EAT THE DAMN DOUGHNUT IF YOU'VE ALREADY GOT IT?!" But then it turned out the point was you were craving a doughnut, but it was midnight, so you had to make due with doughnuty-tasting French toast. Or something like that.

Anyway, now I am on Nigella like white on rice, except in that trainwrecky "don't make me look no wait don't make me not look!!" sort of way. I love her voluptuous bod, but I hate her vocal mannerisms. I don't care for the decidedly vegan-unfriendly nature of the show (for example, a few minutes ago I had to endure the sight of her stuffing bacon into the cavity of a chicken), but it's not like here in India I have the ingredients or equipment to do any real cooking anyway (granola bars for dinner again?). Perhaps I should just hit the mute button and enjoy her silently delicious hips.

more from the supermarket files

WANTED

Yesterday at our usual supermarket, Haiko, they suddenly did not have any flavored yogurt. India is notable in the yogurt department in that they have approximately 8.3 million brands and types and container sizes of plain yogurt, whereas flavored yogurt (a) is only available in 100g single serving size and (2) only comes in mango or strawberry. And then apparently sometimes you just can't have it at all, suckah! Like yesterday.

So today in pursuit of yogurt I decided to walk down to D Mart, which is the slightly closer but way more suckier supermarket. First of all, they take your purse at the door and make you zip it up inside a (dirty, gross) canvas bag that gets "locked" with a plastic garbage tie type thingy. I assume this is intended to be some kind of security measure, because lord knows there is a wealth of paper goods and laundry detergent you could squirrel away in your little purse if they didn't put the smackdown on you before you even entered the building. And then the cashiers have scissors in order to liberate your money just in time for you to hand it over and get herded the hell out. I find this completely annoying as well as insulting, so I just take whatever payment options can fit in my pocket and except for the usual suspicious glares the guards leave me alone.

Also, D Mart is a total goddamn zoo at all times, partly because it tries to be all stores to all people--they carry groceries, small appliances, clothing, dishes, cookware, sheets and towels and curtains, bulk grains and flours, toiletries and perfumes, and they have a pharmacy and a bakery and a paneer counter. All this is crammed into a building the size of maybe two standard 7-11 markets. No matter what time of day, you are sure to stand in line for the checkout for at least 10 minutes, being jostled from all directions by screaming children who are demanding whatever toys and tasty treats that are on prominent display in all the spaces where you otherwise would be able to stand comfortably in line.

So I go and get my mango and strawberry yogurts, which of course I have to buy like six or eight of because they only come in individual serving size, and I grab a couple of other items while I'm at it, and then I begin my glacial approach to the cash register. (I remember once in the summer Casey and I were trying to buy ice cream there and finally gave up because we realized the ice cream would melt by the time we checked out.) After 10 minutes I finally get to the counter and put my little basket down. The cashier looks into it and announces, "Five items only." I think, wha? "Five items only, ma'am." I say, "Oh, this is an express lane?" and she nods. I have no idea where this fact was indicated, but it certainly was not on any sign that I noticed, despite having had 10 leisurely minutes to contemplate my immediate surroundings. The cashier indicates that I will have to go through a different line. So I think, "Ugh," and pick up the basket and then realize as I turn around that even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to get to the back of any of the other lines without forcing a dozen people out of the way, because it was a total goddamn zoo (see above), and so I look back and say, "You can't just ring this up?" She shakes her head no. I look at her like, are you fuckin' kidding me? You are going to make me stand ANOTHER 10 minutes in line just to buy yogurt? She indicates that I could just step in to the front of the line at the register next to hers. I think, yeah, that is going to go over real well with the 15 people in THAT line. I ask again: "Seriously. You can't ring this up?" She shakes her head, like the register is physically incapable of logging more than five items or something.

So then, in an attempt to further cement my local standing as That Big Old Crazy-Ass American Lady, I plopped my basket down in front of her, threw my hands in the air, said "FINE," and turned around and walked out of the store.

D Mart is officially dead to me.

roadside robbery

Christ, so today I get home and realize I've done it again: bought totally normal stuff at the supermarket assuming it will be reasonably priced, then doing the math at home and discovering, e.g., that I have just paid $5.72 EACH for two 200g packets of Finn Crisp bread. And a box of soy milk? $3.56. Arrrrgggghhhhhhhh!

I have been to the market twice and I've already shelled out almost $70 on completely normal stuff like the above, plus fruit and muesli and so on. I am not buying filet mignon and caviar here, people. Who says it's cheap to live here? Sure, if you buy all your meals from the guy with an open fire and no running water on the corner, who chops his meat and vegetables on the concrete by his feet. But then you've got those pricey hospital bills and lost productivity to contend with later, so that's no bargain either.

cereal killer

Some of you may remember the saga of the $8.00 box of Cheerios, and if you are one of those people you will not be surprised to hear that for this latest trip back to Mumbai I filled my suitcase with boxes of various cereals, granola bars, soy jerky, etc., in order to help me get through these 6 weeks without having to take out a second mortgage on my house and/or start wolfing down mutton tikka masala out of sheer calorie-deprived desperation. One of the cereals I brought along and really liked and wish I'd brought more of is something called Special K Red Berries.

We went to HyperCity yesterday, which I have deduced must be owned by the British grocery chain Waitrose, since they have a lot of Waitrose house brand products. I was excited to notice that while HyperCity does not carry Special K Red Berries (or any other version of Special K, for that matter), they did have a Waitrose brand product called Special Choice with Raspberries, Strawberries, and Cherries. It is clearly a knock-off of the other cereal and I got extremely excited about it.

And then I looked at the price (at least I've learned that much). One box cost 575 rupees. At today's exchange rate, that is $14.46. This was not a Costco 8-pack, this was not a 10-gallon bucket...no, my friends, this was a standard size box of cereal. It turns out it isn't vegan anyway (it has milk powder), so the point became moot, but JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER ALREADY.

food and critter update

A woman true to my word, I made vegan (banana oatmeal) pancakes for breakfast last Saturday:



And tonight I made Moroccan vegetable stew and couscous with raisins:



When we got home this evening, we were greeted by a tiny insurance salesman. Alex and Robin tried to catch him while I started making dinner, but they lost sight of him. He may or may not still be in the apartment. Earlier Lon was trying to freak me out by deadpanning, "You know, geckos really like to crawl on your face when you're sleeping."