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It is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire
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| our Bay Area adventures in food |
[11 Aug 2009|10:17pm] |
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"Le Brio" by Big Soul |
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We arrived home late yesterday night from a trip to San Francisco, Monterey, and Napa. Christina, Ted, Vernon and I had a great time. Before pictures come, I bring you my culinary memories of the trip.
Thursday evening: street food from a farmer's market in San Luis Obispo, the highlight being fish tacos.
Friday breakfast: so-so breakfast from hotel, nummy sausage from elsewhere.
Friday lunch: wonderful burgers at an American-themed café called Archie’s near the Monterey Bay Aquarium, in the opposite direction of Cannery Row. We drew on the paper tablecloth with crayons.
Friday dinner: Cafe Gibraltar in El Granada, a chic restaurant in a tiny beachside town south of San Francisco and just north of Half Moon Bay. Moroccan food. We ate on pillows on the floor in a cozy nook. Superb ambiance, wonderful bread. Vernon, Ted, and Christina loved the food; it didn't work for me personally, but my shrimp bisque was still quite good. Vernon had a lamb stew-type meal, Christina had dumplings, Ted had rabbit with noodles. Ted and Christina also had great salads that they let us sample. Vernon sweet-talked the hostess into the restaurant's bread recipe.
(Shortly before we ate, I leapt out of the car in Half Moon Bay to see an infamous alpaca; I did not eat him.)
Friday evening: Amante, a bar. Great decor, so-so mixed drinks. The waitress inadvertently flashed Ted and Vernon, who were both pleased. I was too busy watching the balloon woman who had a balloon creation of a naked woman on her cart and made a flower for two half-drunken women who declared the balloon woman the most fantastic person ever. Nice night to walk around with the boys.
Saturday brunch: tasty sandwiches at Molinari's, an Italian market with outdoor seating only on a busy avenue. Ingredients in our tasty sandwiches included various Italian meats, cheeses, turkey, artichoke hearts, sweet peppers, and more. Nom nom.
Saturday dinner: Le Colonial, a French/Vietnamese restaurant recommended by a co-worker. Located in a narrow white building with a staircase up to the portico (where we ate), a dark interior with colonial decor, and a bar upstairs. Vernon chose the appetizer: crispy duck rolls. I ate a lovely dish of chicken, white and dark, with shitake mushrooms and green beans; meal could have been a bit spicier or sweeter, and desperately needed more mushrooms, but it was presented well. The dark chicken morsels were especially good. Christina had a wonderful vegetable curry with broken rice sauteed with three kinds of onions -- sooo good. Ted and Vernon both had so-so pho.
Saturday evening: coffee at a chocolate bar and cafe joint in the Castro. Nice little place with black, brown, and white candy-stripe decor. Enjoyed the Castro -- no one seemed bothered by anybody else or anything. Christina and I debated buying chocolate cream-filled penispops from a delicious-smelling bakery, but we all felt a little too full for more food.
Saturday night: Toronado, a bar recommended by a Kiwi good friend. The walls are lined with shelves that contain no-longer used taps. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. Ted had pomegranate cider (“Two Rivers”), Vernon had a dark chocolate-y porter, and I had a very bitter pale ale. We couldn't get seats so we left, because we had our lovely pregnant lady in tow and she needed a comfortable place to sit. We also had some of the wine that our apartment-stay's owner gave us in apology for our lack of bed sheets and parking spot.
Sunday: overpriced dim sum at Yank Sing. The pot stickers were quite good. The building had a three-story waterfall in the center – amazing! We met Ted’s friend Ethan from U of C[hicago], where they were dormmates for four years.
Saturday afternoon: excellent, excellent, excellent coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee Company, recommended by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) changeling0230’s partner. The company has “a hands-on approach to every step possible to discover and preserve the true nature of excellent coffee -- no matter how inconvenient or time-consuming.” Extremely, if not excessively, trendy place. Kind, helpful [and many] baristas. I don’t think Ted liked their mochas better than Intelligentsia’s, but who could? My latte was scrumptious. They make their drip coffee with vacuum siphon pots and actually give mini ones out to coffee-goers to share at the bar.
Sunday dinner: Ubuntu in Napa, an overpriced, snooty, unbalanced, but generally very good vegetarian/vegan food restaurant and local yoga studio. (People do yoga in the loft above the restaurant during lunch.) Met Christina's boyfriend there. The waitress kept pushing for us to get multiples of their overpriced dishes, which soured the experience to a large degree. They just seemed to be trying too hard. They needed a tasting menu. Highlights included the bread, the "foie-vocado" (which consisted of essentially guacamole, gooseberries, a spicy sweet sauce, and yellow plums eaten in a piece of bread), the grits, and their magica salad or symphony salad or whatever they called it. The presentation of this last dish was the most interesting: it consisted only of things they have in their own garden, which included leafy greens, brightly colored flowers, sprouts, spicy “dirt,” and a bug (not so vegetarian, eh?). I loved the Ad Astra chardonnay that Ted chose. I mean to track it down. Vernon liked his Napa Valley pilsner; quite nice, quite sweet.
Sunday evening: coffee at the Starbucks nearby our hotel, where the manager earnestly informed me how great the even more nearby Walmart was. We got some protein and sugar there.
Monday morning: a surprisingly okay breakfast from the nice Holiday Inn Express in American Canyon.
Monday late morning/early afternoon: wine tasting! We went to Clos du Val, Rutherford, and the Beaulieu Vineyard tasting room. The pourer at CDV illuminated us of his former coke habit in Miami. Interesting individual. He told me he doesn’t drink beer because he’ll get fat and won’t get ass. Loved. Him. He gave us two big glasses of $125/bottle wine and poured way too much Merlot. The other wine pourers were a tad stodgy, though Rutherford did give us wines not on their list and even let us taste a port (strange, since we embarked on the white list). Napa Valley, I learned, is heavy on reds because it’s so hot. (It got to 105 ° at one point.) Country is not as beautiful as Santa Ynez.
Monday afternoon/lunch: Ted took us to Taylor’s Automatic Refresher. Good burgers, really good garlic (and green!) garlic fries. They served wine there! Holy crap. They had a corkage fee. We didn’t do that.
We did a quick search for Cat's family's roll restaurant in Gilroy, but couldn't find it.
Monday dinner: Mexican food in Soledad. Carne aside wasn’t great, too fatty, but the chicken was delicious.
. . .
All in all, quite satisfactory.
. . .
Flickr is an amazing source of food porn. By the way. It helps to relive certain experiences (especially this one).
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| query of the day |
[04 Jan 2009|01:50pm] |
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If you had $75 to spend on Amazon, thanks to Christmas/birthday gifts from family members, what would you buy? (Consider you'd also be more than willing to spend $25 more, if necessary.) It could be one item or a myriad of items.
My curious mind wants to know.
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| people |
[19 Nov 2008|06:16pm] |
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 upset |
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I just listened to a dog scream, shriek, and scratch at the door of the bathroom in which it was locked for the last hour and a half. Truly god awful. It's probably been doing it all day. The poor thing's "owners" were not home. While I was loathe to actually be in the building next door, I ended up calling the police who told me that they couldn't do one single thing about it and that I should leave them a note or call management. Well, Assholes' management is Wolfe and Associates, who don't allow messages to be left on their main line (despite what their website says) and give an incorrect number to their "emergency maintenance line." I was loathe to call Wolfe because I'm pretty sure they don't allow dogs in that building and I am worried that the "owners" (who, when I met them a couple months ago, we recognized immediately were jerks) will do with the dog they probably aren't allowed to have.
I sent Wolfe an E-mail anyway with several video recordings in which you can hear the dog crying and whimpering. These people are idiots and cruel. I am so livid. And sick to my stomach. I hate when people are negligent to their animals.
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| curiosity should never maim |
[12 Nov 2008|08:17pm] |
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 comfortable |
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music |
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a whirring computer |
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My dream job: professional pet sitter. Curling up on a couch with a kitty in my lap, a dog on my feet, and my nose in a book.
So, come, tell me your dream job - whether you're living it yet or not.
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| o man |
[22 Oct 2008|06:39pm] |
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music |
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Rachel Maddow is oddly adorable |
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Rachel Maddow just related the McCain-Palin campaign to Dadaism.
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| --- |
[02 Oct 2008|06:28pm] |
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McCain/Palin . . . the ultimate Bridge to Nowhere! Oh snap, Joe!
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| ick and what? |
[01 Oct 2008|07:07pm] |
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 confused |
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the fanz0r! |
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Has anyone ever heard of putting Vaseline/petroleum jelly on a cat's paws to prevent vomiting or hairballs? The context appears to be that the cats lick the Vaseline from their paws and suddenly they don't vomit or cough up hairballs.
I heard this yesterday from a UC staff member and I just stared. Um, what?
On a different note, I get really happy when a boy says "Mrrow" to me, even in jest. I'm going down a dark road. Ack.
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| rights for everyone |
[17 Jun 2008|02:33pm] |
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mood |
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proud |
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music |
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"Proud" by Heather Small |
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Guess what, world? California did not spontaneously combust yesterday at 5:01pm. Wonders never cease.
. . .
This is really sweet.
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| it's a phoenetical-mental disconnection problem |
[08 Jun 2008|09:51pm] |
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"On the Roof Again" by Eve 6 |
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Shaz: you know, I'm not stupid, but sometimes I type the wrong word.
Vern: :-D
Shaz: like "their" instead of "there." I just did it and I'm like, "Shayna, you're getting your degree in English in less than seven days. PULL IT TOGETHER, WOMAN."
Vern: Ha! Jah sirusly, otherwise they take it away.
Shaz: Wah!
Vern: ^_^
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| Friends Only |
[21 Apr 2008|08:30pm] |
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"Better" by Regina Spektor |
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And yet, and yet . . . Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.
-- Jorge Luis Borges, "A New Refutation of Time," 1946
Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. . . . You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.
-- Angela Carter, 1985
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[22 Jan 2008|02:00pm] |
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Heath Ledger is dead.
Really.
:(
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| Burnese mountain dog |
[05 Nov 2007|11:00pm] |
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 happy and lovey |
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music |
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Equilibrium |
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Vernon says I can has! Yaaaaaaie!
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| how's this for symbolism? |
[20 Oct 2007|10:43am] |
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 not impressed |
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Vernon singing, "Snape killed gay Dumbledore!" |
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In reference to this news article from the BBC, I would like to point out that the only character in Harry Potter known to be gay is dead. He also appears to have had a pretty bad sex life.
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| Ig nobles |
[06 Oct 2007|03:10pm] |
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"Video Killed the Radio Star" by Buggles, The |
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2007 Ig Nobel Winners
Medicine - Brian Witcombe, of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Foundation Trust, UK, and Dan Meyer for their probing work on the health consequences of swallowing a sword.
Physics - A US-Chile team who ironed out the problem of how sheets become wrinkled.
Biology - Dr Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a creepy crawly census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds.
Chemistry - Mayu Yamamoto, from Japan, for developing a method to extract vanilla fragrance and flavouring from cow dung.
Linguistics - A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.
Literature - Glenda Browne of Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the", and how it can flummox those trying to put things into alphabetical order.
Peace - The US Air Force Wright Laboratory for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among enemy troops.
Nutrition - Brian Wansink of Cornell University for investigating the limits of human appetite by feeding volunteers a self-refilling, "bottomless" bowl of soup.
Economics - Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan for patenting a device that can catch bank robbers by dropping a net over them.
Aviation - A National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters to recover from jet lag.
Stolen from the BBC.
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[15 Mar 2007|12:30am] |
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mood |
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 loved |
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Vernon's dulcet tones |
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Oh, yeah, it's been a great day.
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[23 Jan 2007|11:56pm] |
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SNOW!
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| Ack. |
[28 Nov 2006|02:47pm] |
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mood |
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chipper |
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"Mamma Mia" by A*Teens |
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I will be 21 in three weeks and fifty five minutes.
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[15 Nov 2006|09:32am] |
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Off I go to Londontown.
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