sha v 4.0

Posts Tagged ‘food’

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Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Hello, friends. Apologies for the lack of updates recently; an awful lot of Real Life has gotten in the way. Besides those things, though, life has been pretty good, if not fairly routine. I’ve been keeping myself quite busy on weekends, mostly with good things, an that doesn’t look like that will let up any time soon. We have 3-day passes to Outside Lands, which I’m pretty excited about. I’m especially stoked to see Pearl Jam, Black Eyed Peas, and M.I.A., but there are an almost overwhelming number of other bands playing that weekend. Any of you going?

On the technology front, I picked up a second Airport Express in a shockingly painless Craigslist transaction, and it’s now hooked up to the Bose in the bedroom. I did have a bit of trouble setting it up, but nothing like last time. After hooking it up via ethernet cable to my Mac, updating the Airport utility software, and rembering to prefix my WEP key with a ‘$’, I was good to go. So I am currently lying in bed, typing this entry into the Wordpress iPhone app, and I just used the Remote app to build a playlist from my iTunes library on the laptop om the kitchen and start it streaming to my bedroom without ever having to get up. Technology really is amazing sometimes. And fattening.

Speaking of fattening, I went to Shabuway in Mountain View for dinner tonight, and followed it up with burgundy cherry/hazelnut gelato from Gelato Classico. Yum. This was all a prequel for my triumphant (and temporary) return to Wednesday TV night, which was as fun as I remember. Peter and Crystal also gave us a housewarming gift of an awesome Star Wars toaster that toasts Darth Vader into you bread! Amazing! And in case you’re wondering, no I did not have a housewarming party. Yet. It’s complicated.

And with that, it’s off to bed. I’ll try to update more, but no promises.

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Almost time

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Apologies for the lack of updates, friends. Not too much has been going on this week except tapering down for race day tomorrow! I did my last run on Thursday morning, an easy 3-miles. My left Achilles has been hurting a bit, but not so much that I’m worried about it. It does never cease to amaze me, though, how my body constantly finds new and exciting way to hurt. If you like, you can sign up for text message alerts (my bib number is 12691) for when I cross 7-miles and the finish line. Keep in mind that both of these text messages will be coming in before 8am tomorrow, so I’ll understand if you want to just check the results later in the day. :) [Edit: Man, I just realized it costs $5 to sign up for the alerts. F-that! Just check the site later.]

Last night Walter threw a birthday party for Sprog, and he got pies from Z-Pie! Yum! Happy Birthday, Sprog, and thanks to Walter for organizing!

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Breakfast

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Breakfast

Uploaded to Flickr on 24th June, 2009.

I decided to try making eggs in a basket for breakfast this morning. Turned out pretty well, but I ended up cooking the eggs longer than I wanted to, so the yolk wasn’t runny. I think it would also be better with non-hippie-multigrain bread.

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Posted in General, Photography | San Francisco, CA | | 2 Comments »

Alexander’s Steakhouse

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

Tonight I had an amazing meal at Alexander’s Steakhouse in Cupertino. The occasion was ostensibly to congratulate Matt on his triathlon, but it was also just an excuse to eat a lot of meat. (Hee hee!) I had been there once before for Matt’s birthday but thought it was only okay; the prime rib was too thick for my taste, the truffled mac and cheese that everyone raves about was too truffly, and we just ordered way too much food, so I felt pretty terrible when I left.

This time, though, we ordered much better and I think it was one of the best meals I’ve had in recent memory. So on to the food:

  • Amuse-bouche: Steak tartare. Tangy and flavorful.
  • Starters (for the table): Corn and bacon fritters, hamachi shots, roasted foie gras. The corn/bacon fritters were crispy and very tasty I was worried the bacon would be overwhelming but it was actually pretty subtle, I thought. Hamachi shots were super delicious, as always. I don’t like foie gras so I didn’t try any, but the others seemed to enjoy it.
  • Salad (shared with Babs): Leek salad. The flavors were nice, but the leek was a bit tough and stringy.
  • Palate clenser: A shotglass of some sort of raspberry tea.
  • Entree (shared with Babs): 24oz New York steak. Really flavorful and cooked well. I think I still prefer prime rib when it comes down to it, but the steak was delicious.
  • Sides (for the table): Green beans with bacon, creamed spinach, and mashed potatoes. The green beans were crisp, the creamed spinach didn’t feel heavy at all, and the mashed potatoes were smooth and creamy. I think they may have had a hint of truffle flavor.
  • Dessert (shared with Babs): Chocolate soufflé with creme anglaise, and cotton candy. The soufflé was light and airy not too sweet. It also came with tiny cookies. Cotton candy is always awesome. I think I amused everyone else with my ‘compress into little cubes’ cotton candy eating technique.

Lest you all be disappointed by my gorging, I still ate mindfully, and left comfortably full rather than stuffed. Going out to eat is much nicer when you don’t feel like dying afterwards.

This visit completely turned around my opinion of Alexander’s after a disappointing first visit, and now I wouldn’t hesitate to go back. Yes it’s pricey, but if you order right, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better meal in the South Bay.

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Eating mindfully

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Now that work as slowed to a normal pace, I’ve been trying to get back in shape. I’ve been running and climbing more regularly, and to help, last week I decided to try to start eating mindfully. That is, not eating when I’m not hungry, and when I am hungry, only eating enough for me to stop being hungry, not until I’m overly full. This is a pretty large departure from the way I usually eat, which is quickly, and until I’m uncomfortably full. I’ve also been trying to be better about not eating just because other people are eating, which is something I’m usually pretty bad about. This isn’t a diet, per se, (though it’s as close to being on a diet as I’ve ever been) as it’s not as much about what I eat, just about how much of it I eat. Like Julia Child said, “Everything in moderation.”

It’s actually been going pretty well, and it’s kind of nice to feel good after a meal, instead of uncomfortable. Hopefully I’ll eventually retrain myself so that this becomes the norm, not the exception. That said, some friends and I have reservations for this coming Friday at Alexander’s Steakhouse, so we’ll see how that goes. It’s probably not a good sign that we’re calling it “The Great Meat Extravaganza”…

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Posted in Fitness | San Francisco, CA | | 9 Comments »

I got 99 Chickens

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

And a…nevermind.

We went to the famed 99 Chicken for Peter’s birthday on Thursday (Happy Birthday, Peter!) and it is goooood. Don’t listen to the bitter hipster Yelpers who claim it’s no better than KFC; their truckers hats are on too tight. I dare say that it’s the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Yum.

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Throw your hands in the air

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

C’mon, party people!

How was your Thanksgiving? I thoroughly enjoyed my 4 days off, especially because I hadn’t had more than 1 day off for about 2 months. Like my old calculus teacher used to say, “It’s like beating your head on the wall because it feels so good when you stop.” Hooray!

We had FriendsGiving at Yar/Jan/John’s place, and I was in charge of the turkey again. After this year, I’m pretty convinced the recipe is almost impossible to screw up, as we brined the turkey in a garbage bag, substituted some brine with soy sauce, and coated the turkey in the decidedly non-neutral olive oil, and it still turned out great. What wasn’t great, however, was when I spilled all the pumpkin pie filling all over the kitchen floor. Yay me.

The rest of my weekend was great — went on a hike, played some co-op Left 4 Dead, saw Quantum of Solace, got a lil’ tipsy on some Riesling (and no barfing!), and bought a bike! On Sunday night I rode to Yar’s house, (yes, a whole 0.9 miles away) and I thought my heart was going to explode. I’m out of shape.

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What’s going on in my head?

Monday, October 20th, 2008

I had a dream last night that I met Sarah Palin. One of the things I told her was that I was concerned that people don’t have a voice. She nodded and suggested that maybe people should write their ideas out on huge banners and stretch them across the state of Alaska. My response? “Governor Palin, I don’t think that will work.”

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. They unofficially have us on 6 day work weeks, so I haven’t had too much time for fun-ness. Still was able to squeeze in an outing to Martunis Saturday night where I had, wait for it, two thirds of an apricot martini. Aw yeah. Sunday a group of us walked to The Park Chalet for an overpriced brunch. Trying to get my money’s worth, I ate a lot of cocktail shrimp and woke up this morning with a stomach ache. But, as Yar pointed out, at least I “just leveled up in Asian”.

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This is a title

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

I’m feeling lazy about titles at the moment.

How was your Labor Day? Mine was blissfully free of labor. Had a couple dinners with friends, and not one, but two barbecues. Basically the best weekend ever. Also went on a 6 mile run, which went all right. I’m trying to do a long run (6 or more miles) every weekend from now on. So far, I’m 1/1. Go me.

I’ve been working more on my photo website (no, it’s not up yet, so don’t go a-lookin’ for it), which has been fun but also obsession-inducing. I stayed up until 1:30 am the other day making sure my blog validated on w3.org. Yes, I’m a nerd. I also installed photo cart software so people can buy prints, which is pretty cool.

Today I met up with Cliff and Andy for lunch, and we ended up going to Yank Sing for dim sum. The food was good, (though not any better than most dim sum places I’ve ever been), and I looked forward to a pretty light bill, as we didn’t order many dishes. Much to our dismay, the bill ended up at $97 before tip for four people. $97 for dim sum?? The pot of tea was over $7! Before we left, we made sure to drink as much tea as possible to get our money’s worth. It was packed in there, and there are a number of 5-star reviews on Yelp, so maybe I’m missing something, but there had better be Xiao Long Bao stuffed with gold dust in a wrapper of $20 bills to make it worth the money.

This afternoon, Amanda and I decided to check out the Power to the Peaceful concert in the park. Holy Hippies, Batman! We lasted about 15 minutes. Never before have I seen such a high concentration of B.O. and pot smoke. At least the walk there was nice.

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Miracle fruit

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

I first heard about Miracle fruit in an article that Yar sent me an article about them. I was intrigued, but they are apparently sort of hard to come by, so I didn’t really give it much more thought. But a week or so ago, I got an email from Think Geek, saying they had the berries in a tablet form, so I went ahead and ordered a pack.

They came yesterday, and I have to admit I was extremely skeptical about it, not least because of the suspicious-looking Chinese packaging. However, Yar and Jan came over to try them anyway. We each put a tablet in our mouths until they dissolved, with Yar and I making sure to coat our tongues as it dissolved. Still skeptical, I was handed a lime and discovered it tasted like candy. Disbelieving, we cut pieces of lemon and ate them, and they tasted like lemonade. We also tried rice vinegar (meh), Tapatio (thumbs up), Sriracha (thumbs up), cherry tomatoes (thumbs down; it tasted like tomatoes with sugar), white wine (thumbs up from me; thumbs down from Jan), and rum with lemon juice (thumbs up until the alcohol burn kicked in). The biggest thumbs up by far was just plain lemons, though. It became apparent that Jan wasn’t having the transcendent experience that Yar and I were having, which we think is because she didn’t coat her tongue with the tablet as it dissolved. The effect lasted about an hour, and was definitely one of the weirdest food experiences I’ve ever had.

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