Kaykat's Blog

And India wins the Twenty20!

2007-09-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Finally, a major trophy! It has only been 24 years!!! The last major tournament victory for India was the 60-overs-a-side Prudential World Cup in 1983!

The cricket-crazed nation is pretty much beside itself with joy right now. Such a thrilling win too. A 5 run win over arch-rival Pakistan - couldn't ask for more than that!

Sweet!

Pic of the day

2007-09-20T23:29:00.004-07:00

From the Virginia Inn restroom:

Yes, typo. But it got us thinking - how many words really exist that have a "eech" syllable other than "speech"? Not that many, but more than we realized: beech, breech, leech, screech ...? A lot less than the number of words with "each": beach, reach, teach, impeach, breach, bleach ... we could go on!

Now, all we need is some "speach" on that wall!

Cute lil Amelia!

2007-09-20T15:17:00.000-07:00

I've been helping with babysitting this incredible cute puppy - Amelia is from a litter of 6 puppies that Stephanie and Shawn have been fostering for the last 12 weeks. And she's a doll. I'd forgotten how insanely cute and insanely (?) insane puppies can be!

This one does it all: chases her tail, rolls around on the ground, sleeps on her back, whines in excitement for just about anything and mesmerizes all with her cute puppy eyes. She has a fabulous temperament to boot - she's ok running around with big dogs and is completely taken with Vodka (who doesn't quite care for her yet!) It makes for serious entertainment when she climbs all over him and licks his face when perched atop his back! I'm still trying to get a picture of that :)

!!!... India enters the semis!

2007-09-20T12:53:00.001-07:00

Sweet. Two well-played matches in a row. That's always a good thing (and often a rarity!)

India won the toss and elected to bat on what seemed like a really green bowler's pitch. And to make it tougher, Yuvi was out for this match (tendonitis). We made a seemingly modest score of 153 for 6 with Rohit Sharma scoring the high of 50. But we totally ruled when South Africa came in to bat! RP Singh made a killing with 4 wickets and Sreesanth chipped in 2. Pretty sweet!

More here.

Woooo!!! Yuvraj goes ballistic!

2007-09-19T12:45:00.001-07:00

Six sixes in an over! We haven't seen that in a while! Well, we haven't seen India play truly spirited cricket in a while (but I'll save that rant for another day)!

Yuvi rocked. And India won. Awesome.

Behold a(nother) food blog!

2007-09-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

I finally got tired of everybody giving me crap about how my blog is really just a food blog :)

So, now there is a real food blog. And this one is just going to talk about everything else ... hmm ... is there anything else to talk about? :)

21 Acres

2007-09-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, back after a long long hiatus! The last several weeks have been crazy busy, but now everything that I might've wanted to write about is so yesterday! :)

But it is never too late to make a plug for 21 Acres - a center that promotes local, sustainable food. We went to a community dinner there a couple of weekends ago and it was simply fabulous. It was a perfect summer evening, and we even got to watch the hot air balloons take off over Woodinville.

Before dinner, we got a chance to walk around the farmlands and check out the model of the new buildings and the living roof. And, for the first time ever, we saw a hop plant - didn't smell hoppy at all.

The menu was really simple - a variety of salad greens (including some spicy arugula, yum!) tossed with a light vinaigrette, a slew of roasted vegetables, pizzas topped with veggies from the farm - they brought in a giant portable brick oven for firing these - *so* good!

And then, it got even better! Dessert was the biggest and juiciest blackberries and blueberries we've ever come across. Yum!

Desi food cookout - Part Deux

2007-08-07T22:39:00.001-07:00

Ok, time to finish up this post! :)

So, after finishing up the sides, I started on the chappathis. The dough had sat for over an hour and was soft and quite happy. Hmm ... no rolling pin! That's a challenge. Oh well! I just had to use my hands instead. Wait! A Voss bottle! Brilliant! That was fun - rolling balls of chappathi dough into rotis with the Voss bottle. I just cooked them dry on a pan, no oil or butter. Turned out perfectly soft and yummy!

Finally, the Peas Pulao that I got started before rolling out the chappathis:

2 cups basmati rice - soaked in water for about 5 minutes, drained and spread to dry in a plate or flat pan
1 stick cinnamon
3 bay leaves
1 piece of nutmeg
1 t garam masala
1 pinch turmeric
1.5 cups frozen peas
1 t sesame oil
2 t ginger-garlic paste
salt to taste

Heat oil in a saucepan (large enough to cook the rice) and add the ginger-garlic paste, cinnamon, bay leaves and nutmeg. Once they are browned, throw in the rice and saute for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly. Then add 3.5 - 4 cups of water along with the peas, garam masala and salt and simmer partially covered till the rice is cooked. Garnish with a handful of chopped cilantro.

Dinner rocked! We opened a bottle of Prosecco to go with the desi food - it is often hard for us to find decent pairings given the spiciness of indian good, but this Prosecco totally complemented the flavors. Except now I've forgotten the label! Damn!

Desi food cookout - Part I

2007-08-01T00:05:00.001-07:00

Jo and Rich visited over the weekend - after we hit the baseball game in the afternoon, we moseyed over to Uwajimaya to get the makings for our mega desi meal :) That store is a lot of entertainment, we spent close to an hour strolling through the aisles, getting distracted by every fifth thing on the shelves - probably something we hadn't seen before! We finally marched out of there with 5 bulging bags of groceries - made heavier by the many mangoes and tender coconuts that I insisted on buying :)

So, the menu for the night:

Dum Aloo
Kadai Paneer
Peas Pulao
Cilantro chappathis
Papads from TJs (I forgot to get the masala papads I really wanted, so we had to make do!)

We discovered that Uwajimaya has a great spread of most things, but they are seriously lacking in cheeses. Maybe that is not surprising for an asian store, but we were banking on finding paneer there, so we had to hit Madison Market instead.

Chappathis: Dough
===============
I started off by kneading the dough - this is made from whole wheat flour. Traditional chappathis don't usually have any filling or seasoning, but we wanted something different. So, I threw in a bunch of minced cilantro along with some red chilli powder and salt. I usually add warm water when initially kneading the dough, and follow this up with some non-fat milk - this makes the dough really smooth and easy to roll out. After kneading, I covered the dough with a wet kitchen towel - letting the dough sit for a couple of hours usually results in much softer rotis.

The next thing to work on was the Dum Aloo. I chose to try a saalan-style masala for this instead of the more traditional poppy seed based flavors. This proved to be a good idea, I definitely want to use this base with more vegetables:

Dum Aloo
========
15-18 small potatoes (we carefully picked small ones that we didn't have to chop up)
20-25 pine nuts - soaked in 1/2 cup of warm water for about 10 minutes
2 T sesame seeds
1 black cardamom pod
3 t coriander seeds
2 t cumin seeds
2 cloves
1" cinnamon
1 small piece of nutmeg
6 cloves garlic
2" ginger
1 T olive oil
1 large red onion - minced
3-4 green cardamon pods
1/2 t turmeric powder
1 t cayenne pepper
2 - 2.5 cups buttermilk

The most important thing here is soaking the potatoes. It is pretty amazing how much of a difference that makes! I pricked the potatoes all over with a fork and soaked them in a bowl of warm water with 1 t of salt for about an hour.

Next, I dry roasted the pine nuts, sesame, black cardamom, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg till the pine nuts turn slightly brown. Once cooled, I ground them up into a fine powder.

I proceeded to mince the garlic and ginger along with the onions to form a coarse paste - it seems like preserving some small pieces instead of grinding to a fine paste results in a much better texture (and better flavor absorption).

Once the potatoes were soaked, we wiped them clean and sauteed them in a broad pan with 1/2 T of olive oil. This worked perfectly since we used this amazing calphalon nonstick pan. Got to love good cookware! :)

We then took the potatoes out and added the remaining 1/2 T of oil to the pan. And then threw in the onion-ginger-garlic paste. Once the onions were browned (this took about 15 minutes), we added the ground masala and salt and stirred it till the powder seemed mixed in. Now we started adding the buttermilk - 2-3 T at a time. I remember reading someplace that this needs to be done slowly so that the buttermilk does not curdle. It actually worked out much easier than I expected. We ended up adding over 2.5 cups, and it lent the perfect consistency. We finally added the potatoes in, mixed the sauce and covered the pan. We cooked it on simmer for almost 30 minutes before it was done. And done beautifully! :)

Meantime, Jo was cutting the pepper and carrots - the most beautifully julienned vegetables I've ever used :) The Kadai Paneer is a pretty simple recipe that can be made in so many different ways: some recipes call for a dry dish with roasted vegetables and paneer dusted with dry masala while others use a tomato gravy. I went with a tomato-onion gravy since it seemed like a good idea to soak it up with the rotis.

Kadai Paneer
=============
1 onion
4 vine tomatoes
5 cloves garlic
3 thai green chillies
1 T garam masala (I had pre-made this, so it made things a lot quicker)
1 bell pepper - julienned
2 carrots - julienned
1 block of paneer (about 12 oz, I think) - chopped into long pieces
1/2 T olive oil

I tossed the onions, tomatoes, garlic and green chillies into a food processor and ground them to a coarse paste. Once the olive oil was heated (in a shallow pan), we threw in this paste and let it cook - this took a little longer than expected, almost 20 minutes. We then added the peppers and carrots and let them cook covered for another 7-8 minutes. In the meantime, ,we baked the paneer (greased with a little oil spray) for about 12 minutes at 350 F until the edges started browning. Finally, we added the garam masala and salt along with the paneer to the veggies and let them simmer for a few more minutes. Garnishing was chopped cilantro - I love that smell - when we toss freshly chopped cilantro into hot gravy! Yum!!

Phew! I'm tired of writing these recipes already! Think I'll post this and let the rest come in Part II :)

Go Mariners!

2007-07-31T23:32:00.000-07:00

Woo Hoo Hoo!!! Ok, this is a delayed post, so don't interpret this as a response to the Ms loss earlier this evening.

We went with Jo & Rich to the game on sunday - against the As. It was probably one of the best games we've been to in a long time (I know! I say that everytime I get to watch the Ms win :)) But this was seriously awesome! And it was 70s night! I finally got to connect a face with the name 'Erik Estrada'! Yay! (I still have no clue what CHiPs is all about! But I do know SeaLab!)

Great weather, fabulous seats - that's the great thing about being at Safeco - it is such a neat stadium that pretty much any section seems to have a good viewing experience. This is the second game where we've sat in the 300 section over first base and had a great view of the goings on.

Just as we thought the Ms were running away with the game (we did lead 7-1), the As fouight back and soon lead 10-7. What with Sexson and McLaren being thrown out, it seemed like the Ms were out of sync. But awesome Ichiro and Broussard came to the rescue and we fought back. And we finally won 14-10.

Awesome. And we even had the 70s bad hair dancer to keep us entertained!

Shasta rocked!

2007-07-31T22:47:00.000-07:00

Yeesh! July has been a month of minimal posts! Between crazy work and travelling, it has been almost impossible to write about most things I seem to think about.

But the blog just cannot go on without mentioning Shasta. It was divine, except for when it started raining and we had to run downstairs and sleep inside instead of on the houseboat like we did for the first few nights. Speaking of sleeping on the top of the houseboat - the night sky was fabulous. Even more so since a clear night sky is so hard to come by in Seattle! And we constantly regretted not taking the field guide. So, instead of checking out new constellations, we stuck with the good old dippers and orion and sirius :)

The water level kept dropping as the week went by. Until it started raining!!

The water was warm, the tubing was so much of fun! Sucks that it took me three days to finally do it!

The stretch at the top of this hill was the only place where Shy and I were able to do our running in the morning!

We took this last picture the morning after it started raining.

Woooo! I can see some beans!

2007-07-11T12:54:00.002-07:00

My p-patch is happy, very happy! I see a couple of bell peppers already! Several beans are out, a handful of tomatoes are on their way, the endive is growing like crazy! As are the leeks and beets :)

My one lonely squash plant - it's doubled in size already since I took this picture (it has been 3 days!)

I still need to plant some peas, maybe more tomatoes and some of that spicy salad greens that I'm always eating off Autumn's deck garden! :)

Squash Blossom Quesadillas

2007-07-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

The Redmond Farmers' Market had bags of squash blossoms for sale. The only time I ate these, they tasted awesome, couldn't wait to try a recipe with them. Besides, the gal at the market totally sold me on these, as well as some great-looking beet greens. Yum!

Most recipes seem to just lay out the blossoms with grated cheese and maybe some grilled onions. But I really wanted more veggies in there. So, this is what I went with:

Squash Blossom Quesadillas
=======================
5-6 tomato tortillas (PCC carried these for a few weeks *yummy*!)
1 onion - sliced long
1/2 green bell pepper - julienned
1/2 red bell pepper - julienned
1 carrot - grated (medium or large shreds)
1/2 can black beans - rinsed
kernels from 1 ear of steamed corn
15-20 squash blossoms
salt and Marie Sharp habanero-carrot sauce for seasoning
1/2 cup of grated pepperjack cheese
1/2 t of olive oil

Heat oil and saute the onions till they turn brown. Throw in the bell peppers and carrots and saute for about 6-7 minutes. Add the beans and corn and let it simmer for another 3-4 minutes. Turn off the stove and throw in the squash blossoms and seasonings.

Spoon out the veggie mix onto a tortilla and sprinkle with some grated cheese. Top with another tortilla, press it down. Cook both sides on a griddle till tortillas are crisp and the cheese is melted inside.

The flavors of the squash blossoms was awesome! The slightly sweet flavors seemed to blend quite well with a tangy pineapple salsa.

Yay!

Fish does taste good!

2007-07-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

We wanted to make something out of Jay Solomon's caribbean cookbook on the 4th, but we kind of took the reverse route - figured we'll pick the most interesting fish and then find a recipe to go with it :)

Madison Market had happy-looking ling cod - *yay*! Another first :) So, we frantically started browsing our book for an appropriate recipe. And we found one that we could work with - it was hot enough to want something light, maybe lemony, so this is what we worked with:

Ling Cod in Cilantro & Lime Marinade
=============================

6 ling cod fillets - 4-5 oz each
Juice of 2 lemons
1 bunch cilantro
7-8 fresh garlic cloves
1 t paprika
1 T cayenne
1/2 t coriander powder
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t cumin powder
kosher salt to taste

Grind up the cilantro and garlic and add the rest of the spices. Coat the fish with the marinade and refrigerate for about 1 hour. We could have grilled the fish or baked it - we chose to do a combination of baking and stove-top cooking instead. We first baked the fish covered in foil for about 5-7 minutes. Then, we took the fish out and cooked each piece in a pan for about 6-7 minutes, turning the pieces constantly. Guess the fish was pretty thick, it cooked a lot longer than we expected. But it turned out perfect. Yummy!

We had a couple of sides with the fish - one was roasted gold potatoes with garlic and walla walla onions. The other was this sunburst squash dish:

Sunburst squash curry
=================

8 sunburst squashes - diced
1 t mustard
1 t urad dal
1/2 t asafoetida
2 chopped red chillies
1 t sesame oil
2 T shredded coconut
salt to taste

Roast the mustard, dal, asafoetida and red chillies in the oil, throw the squash and coconut and saute till the squash is cooked. Add the salt and saute for about a minute more. Garnish with chopped cilantro. This turned out awesome! Sunburst squash tends to let out less water than zucchini or yellow squash and absorbs a lot more flavor - the red chillies+coconut perfectly complemented the slight sweetness of the squash.

Surprise! (07/08/07)

2007-07-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

Time for another hike! This time, the foursome (Varun, Neha, Vodka and I) headed off to Surprise Creek off Highway 2. This is a pretty long hike to the lake (over 9 miles RT), there was no way I expected to finish it with kids in tow, but it sounded scenic enough to be gratifying even if we did just part of it.

Sunday turned out pretty cloudy and muggy. After a little searching, we found the unmarked service road (past mile marker 58) to the right of Hwy 2, about 10 miles past Skykomish. We drove over the railroad tracks and went on a bumpy road for about 1/4 mile to get to the trailhead. It was a lot more crowded than we expected, tons of overnight backpackers. In fact, V&N were the only kids on the trail! And no llamas on this trail :)

The trail initially starts out under the power lines, but soon veers away into the forest. It is pretty well maintained, lots of wooden steps along the way. The first creek crossing is really cool - a huge fallen tree across the water.

Obviously, the kids decided this was the coolest part of the hike - we crossed the bridge about 20 times as Vodka kept splashing around in the water below!! There are tons of waterfalls and wading pools along the first couple of miles. We probably went up another 3/4 miles - as the trail started switchbacking up the valley face. Neha was getting tired by then, so we stopped at the next flat area. The sun started coming out just then, it was beautiful to see the light on the waterfall below.

Time to head back, I ended up toting Neha on my back most of the way down - almost 40 lbs ==> good training for Rainier :)

Pretty neat writeup about the trail here.

First hike of the season - Melakwa Lake (07/01/07)

2007-07-08T22:57:00.001-07:00

Finally, finally we started hiking this season! With all this damn running, it has been hard to find time for hiking! We were originally thinking of hitting Mt.Forgotten or Mt.Dickerman on sunday, but we got a somewhat late start (like always :) ), so we picked a closer hike - Melakwa Lake (Exit 47 off I-90).

After getting lost in the maze of the Denny Creek campground, we finally found our way out to the real trail. Wait! We're supposed to be hiking alongside llamas? Is that a good idea? And does this mean Vodka can't be on this trail?!

It was a beautiful day, there were several folks on the trail, but it definitely wasn't overcrowded. We saw tons of native plants along the way - trillium, polygonatum, dogwoods, columbines and more.
. The first waterfall was pretty crowded - guess a lot of the campers at Denny Creek were hanging out here - bummer we couldn't hang out here - I love hopping around on the bare rocks near the water.

We crossed the bridge and continued hiking up towards Keekwulee Falls (we even saw some skinny-dipping action from afar!) The trail got steeper and we soon hit the switchbacks across the boulder fields.

We finally crested at Hemlock Pass after trudging through a couple of slick snow patches. From here, it was about 1/2 mile down through mud and slush to Melakwa Lake. We then made our way along the western edge - across the steep snow face to this outcrcopping on the north-western edge of the lake. Sorry Autumn, we'll try to avoid such adventures next time :)

Time for lunch - amazing how food tastes *so* good after all that hiking! Scrambled egg sandwiches, grapes, cherries ... *yum*! Just as we finished eating, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and a cool wind started blowing - too bad, we were hoping to take a dip in the water! Instead, we plodded back through the snow to the south end of the lake and tried to take a few more pictures until the bugs chased us back down!

Phew! Even with all that scrambling across the snow, our kneecaps escaped the Duval Curse :)

Mountains to Sound Relay

2007-06-27T23:53:00.001-07:00

Sunday came and we needed to head out relatively early to Sammamish Slough for the relay - the initial estimate was that Laurel would get done with her biking leg sometime between 11-11:30 and we'll have to start our paddling then. So, we hauled the kayak down there and set it near the water by 9:30, then wandered over to Victor's for coffee and breakfast (Seriously, racetime is one of those few instances when I have *zero* appetite, anything I try eating seems to taste like cardboard!). We hung out there for a good hour and stared out the window as it got increasingly windy and rainy as we waited for Han to call us about our paddling leg.

Well, it was past 11:30. And we heard the not-so-good news. Han fell off her mountain bike navigating a sharp turn and damaged the handlebars in the process, which in turn delayed Laurel. Hmm ... as we waited around (almost 12:30), we heard news about people getting lost on the bike trail. Finally, we hit the water a few minutes before 1 pm. By then, it was pretty overcast and it had been drizzling on and off. Guess we got our wish - we were among the last ones out and pretty much had the slough to ourselves! :)

Hmm ... a couple of miles in and we're both thinking "Maybe kayaking this route just 2 days ago wasn't such a fabulous idea!" Our arms were hurting some, but the bigger deal was that the route seemed a little ... well, boring?! Friday had been a much prettier day, we had seen a lot more birds then, sunday was kind of dreary, we had waited forever before starting and the birds seemed to have gone away. *bleh*!

So, after endless paddling, we finally got to Lake Wa - only to be caught in incredibly choppy water! We paddled around relentlessly, trying really hard to head to the shore at Log Boom Park, only to keep getting turned around by the waves. Quite freaky! Finally headed to shore, then a long ride to Redmond to get the car, another long ride to drop the kayak off. Yeeesh, *so* much of work! :)

Go Ms!

2007-06-27T23:52:00.001-07:00

Where the hell was my parking karma when I really needed it?!!

I was heading to watch the Ms game earlier this afternoon and made the big, big mistake of driving downtown. What was I thinking? That my reliable parking karma would hold me in good stead and land me a prime spot near Safeco? Well ... no! It failed me! Miserably! I drove around for over an hour trying to find a spot somewhere, anywhere! Finally, finally, after seemingly infinite stops at every light along the way, I was able to sneak into the Qwest parking lot and snag a spot on the roof level. *phew*

It was the perfect day for baseball - the sun was coming out, it was getting increasingly warmer, the Ms were playing the Sox, we're at Safeco (*such* a fabulous ballpark!) - good life (albeit parking woes!).

After a sluggish first half, it turned out to be a great game - right up to the nailbiting finish when Lopez doubled in the 11th to win the game! Ichi rocked with 3 hits (hope everybody remembered to cast his all-star vote!), Putz was spiffy. And I'll let USSMariner tell the rest of the story :)

All in all, very entertaining game. Good baseball, great weather, entertaining fans attempting lame waves! And we kept wondering why there are so many Boston fans at the Ms home game. Well, we don't have the answer. But we sure are not the only ones wondering!

Sushi, Miso, et al

2007-06-24T23:28:00.001-07:00

Time to make sushi again! We're still struggling with rolling, but it seems to be getting marginally better.

I think it is time to take a class on this. PCC seems to have one, as does Uwajimaya, but I'm favoring the one at Culinary Communion - the wine class there was pretty fun, most of their classes are very hands-on and end up with everyone feasting on the giant spread that was just cooked up. Sounds delightful :)

I guess sushi-grade fish is pretty rare commodity in the grocery stores - the last time we wanted to make sushi, we got tuna from Whole Foods - it was amazing, but that was all they had! This time we wanted more variety, so we marched off to that asian food museum of sorts in SoDo. Uwajimaya has this wide spread of sushi-grade fish, so we ended up picking up tuna, salmon and yellow tail. As we started cutting up the fish for the rolls, we discovered that Whole Foods (more popularly known as Whole Paycheck) is pricey for a reason - quality. The tuna we had got there last time was a dream to cut up - like running a knife through butter. But this fish felt a lot denser, and the corners were somewhat leathery. Oh well! The rolls did turn out pretty tasty, but we might be scouting around some more for the perfect sushi-grade fish.

We figured a miso soup would go well with the sushi, we used a recipe out of this awesome Vegetarian Basics cookbook. I'll dig up the recipe and post it in a bit :)

B & O Espresso

2007-06-24T23:27:00.005-07:00

I've always loved B&O's fabulous desserts - those Rum Balls are to die for! But last friday, we were especially happy to have B&O around. After a long kayak ride and the drive back, it was almost midnight and we were dying of hunger. And B&O serves dinner till 00:00 hours! Woo Hoo!! So, we rolled in there all grubby and starving!

The menu there is such a hodge podge of cuisines - obviously a lot of middle eastern flavors, but they also have a ton of sandwiches, some pastas, steak and probably a lot more! We got the lentil soup - they totally ODed on the vinegar here. I usually love the flavor of a dash of balsamic vinegar in moroccan lentil soup, but this soup had way too much of it, totally overwhelmed the bay leaf and lentil flavors. Guess Pupp's clam chowder (New England style, as I learned :)) was pretty decent.

We then dug into the Egyptian foul (pronounced "fool") and a spinach salad. The foul was again doused with vinegar (instead of lemon juice?!) and wasn't as flavorful as I remembered. The spinach salad had mushrooms (I think that's a no-no for spinach salads!) and almost swimming in dressing *ick*. But when you're hungry, pretty much anything tastes quite decent :)

Our drink of the night was actually pretty decent - coffee spiked with Godiva liqueur and Drambuie (I think) - warm and fuzzy!

Paddy Coynes - yay!

2007-06-24T23:27:00.003-07:00

*lots* of kayaking ==> tired muscles and hungry bellies!
Our starving bellies were craving burgers after the Mountains to Sound relay. And it was time to try out Paddy Coynes off Fairview. And we loved it except for the irish music playing in the background (I was too tired to start my riverdance that evening! :) ).

Like often, I ordered the all-exclusive garden burger (?!! I kid :) ) and Pupp got the Fish'n'Chips (didn't realize this had Alaskan cod, maybe I'll try it next time!). My burger was awesome - granted it was just a garden burger, but the bread was great, the onions was awesome. I was *happy*. And some shoestring fries and we were in carb-heaven :)

Plus they seem have a pretty good selection of beer on tap (not like I drink much beer, but I did have a pint that day :))

Kayaking the Sammamish Slough

2007-06-24T23:27:00.001-07:00

As training for the Mountains to Sound relay on sunday, we decided to do a test run of our route along the stretch of the Sammamish Slough. This whole kayaking thing sounded like a lot of fun (to me atleast! :)) but all the prep work is turning out to be really tedious. I had a minor panic session a few days ago when NWOC said that they were completely sold out of take-away kayaks for the weekend. "There is some race happening this weekend ..." said the gal there. "Well, we're taking part in that race! We need a kayak too!!" Oh well! Moss Bay finally bailed us out and even offered to help us get the kayak on the car. Thanks, Moss Bay!

We planned on starting our kayaking about 5ish, but it turned out to be more like 6:45 when we hit the water. And the slough seemed more like a puddle in places, we couldn't put our rudder out and were scraping the bottom with our oars. But it was an amazing ride - the weather was perfect, the sun was out and there were tons of birds around. We saw several kinds of ducks, geese and a ton of herons that kept flying over our heads. And we even got to see several beavers!

Well, 12 miles with our super heavy kayak took a lot longer than we expected! It was dark by the time we got to Lake Washington and Thad had to navigate us around before we finally got to the shore. He was expecting us at Log Boom Park at about 9:15, but we ended up reaching there close to 10 pm! Thanks Thaddie for driving us around! :)

Montlake Ale House

2007-06-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

After our first kayaking session this year, we hit Montlake Ale House on 23rd. We drive by this place all the time, but have never been in there.

Definite pluses:
* Pretty good beer selection on tap
* Hales Cream on tap *yay*!
* The bartender makes a yummy baileys+coffee+etc
* Nice space, fun company at the bar

The menu looked pretty good - they even have a bunch of veggie options. We got pasta in a wine sauce and this eggplant sandwich. And of course, being the unofficial onion rings reviewer around town, I had to swap out the fries for some rings - and they were pretty good. The pasta was mediocre - too runny, the sandwich was decent - a little too messy and rich, but tasty nevertheless.

We could hit this spot again, especially after another round of kayaking :)

Woooo! First kayak ride of the year!

2007-06-14T23:35:00.001-07:00

About time we did it too - given we're doing the kayak segment in the Mountains to Sound relay next week!

It was a pretty decent evening - 70F, partly cloudy. We headed up to Agua Verde and rented our 2-person kayak. Our route included going to Ballard Bridge, possibly past it to the locks. We had a headwind going in and we haven't kayaked all year, so it took a bit to get into sync. But it was a great evening to be kayaking and there weren't too many boats out there, so we didn't have to fight too many waves. It is pretty amazing how different the terrain seems from the water, we often didn't recognize the buildings (especially on the Queen Anne side)!

We kayaked till Ballard Bridge and wisely decided to turn back - my arms started getting tired though Pupp seemed to be going strong. *Yay*! Tailwind! Paddling gets easier! Pretty uneventful, we just moseyed back - saw a ton of ducks and several boats whose passengers were playing some scavenger hunt in the water! They asked us a couple of trivia questions that we didn't know the answer to:
Who is the Norse goddess of love? Apparently 'Freya', but we didn't know that!
And how deep is Lake Union? 15 meters (didn't know that either!)

Took us about 2 hours to do 7.2 miles - *much* slower than we expected. Hopefully, we can get a little faster (in the next week?!!) and paddling downstream along Sammamish Slough should be easier too.

*fun*!

More kozhambu and Tinda curry - yum!

2007-06-13T18:12:00.001-07:00

About time I cooked some traditional desi food - every once in a while, I crave for more kozhambu the way my mum makes it. And last night was one of those times. And I had white pumpkin (often used in indian and asian cooking) and some punjabi tinda, yay!

More kozhambu is a staple south indian dish - often made on most festival days. It is buttermilk based, but the spices can vary greatly depending on which region the recipe originated from. And it can be made with a variety of vegetables - actually one of the few dishes that I like throwing okra into!

Masala for more kozhambu:
======================
1/2 t fenugreek seeds
1/2 t coriander seeds
1/4 t cumin seeds
1 t channa dal
1 t tuar dal
1/2 t raw rice
1/4 cup grated coconut
1" ginger
1 red chilli
1 green chilli
1/4 t asafoetida

Dry roast all spices and grind them up finely in a spice mill.

More kozhambu (serves 2-3)
=======================
1/4 white pumpkin - peeled and julienned
1 t mustard
2 red chillies
1 t urad dal
A few curry leaves
1 cup fat-free sour cream
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 t turmeric
1 t sesame oil
Above-mentioned masala
Salt

Roast mustard, red chillies curry leaves and urad dal in oil.
Add 1 cup of water and cook the pumpkin with the turmeric (~ 10 mins).
Add the masala and salt and simmer for about 5 minutes.
Mix the sour cream and buttermilk and blend it till smooth (add a little water if it is too thick).
Add the sour cream mixture to the veggies and simmer.
Stir constantly to blend the flavors, but don't turn up the heat since it can break up the buttermilk.
Add a drop of ghee for flavor and fragrance - this makes a huge difference :)

Tinda is a seasonal vegetable in India, so we were always excited when we found it in the market. And when we did, my mum always tried new recipes with it - *so* much of fun! This is just one quick way of cooking it.

Tinda Curry (serves 2-3)
===================
1 lb tinda (the indian store often has it) - cut into quarters
2 tsp masala (equal parts of red chillies, roasted fenugreek, mustard - all ground up)
Salt
1 t oil
1 t cumin seeds

Roast the cumin seeds in oil
Add the masala and salt and let it cook for about 30 seconds
Throw in the tinda and toss the pieces in the masala
Cook covered for about 15 minutes on medium
Simmer uncovered for a few more minutes till any residual water evaporates

*yum*!

Spicy Ramen with vegetables

2007-06-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I was craving indo-chinese spicy noodles - oddly enough, this qualifies as comfort food :) I couldn't find hakka noodles at PCC, so I had to settle for ramen instead - they now carry this spicy garlic-pepper veggie ramen noodles (that are low-fat!). Figured I could approximate the flavor I wanted by adding some bhel puri sauces.

Recipe:

1/2 cabbage - shredded (I *love* cutting cabbage!)
2 carrots - grated
1" ginger - minced
a handful of dry roasted peanuts
2 packets of ramen noodles
1 t garlic-green chilli sauce
1 t red chilli-tamarind sauce
1 t white vinegar

Cook the carrots, ginger and cabbage covered (no need to add more water since the cabbage sheds enough water).
Add 3 cups of water and heat till the water boils
Throw in the noodles and cook for ~ 3-4 minutes
Add the sauces, vinegar and peanuts and toss

Mmm ... tasty! Except that I tossed in 2 t of each of the sauces and kicked it up about 10 notches! Oooo .... *hot*! Even for my spice-loving tongue!!!

Beans and Pasta Casserole

2007-06-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

Got to love that Joy of Cooking book! I've been reading more of that than anything else in the last several days!

I got a bunch of fresh green beans at PCC and started poking around JofC trying to find a new beans recipe. And I stumbled upon a couple of casserole and gratin recipes. But both asked for cream of mushroom soups - and I didn't have any (not a big fan of them creamy soups!). So, this is what I cooked up instead:

1/2 lb green beans - chopped into 2" pieces
2 cups of pasta (rotelle)
2-3 bay leaves
1.5 cups milk
1 tsp butter
1/4 cup flour
Salt'n'pepper
1/3 cup grated pepperjack cheese
1 tomato - finely minced (best to use a hand blender for this)

Cook the pasta till al dente.
Cook the green beans till tender (I just cooked both together)

Heat oven to 350F.

Heat butter, add flour and stir.
Add bay leaves and milk and stir (on simmer) till smooth and thick.
Toss the pasta and beans into this sauce.
Add the grated cheese, toss and pour into casserole dish.
Sprinkle the tomato shreds on the top.
Bake at 350F for 10 minutes.

*yay*!

Alborz rocks!

2007-06-08T23:50:00.001-07:00

Yay! Another trip to Alborz - my fave Persian restaurant around here - this small restaurant in Redmond is run by this couple who basically handle everything there - seating, taking orders, cooking, serving, the works! Their food is *so* good - simple, fresh and quite tasty! And they have the best pickled garlic ever.

As I was mulling over what I wanted to eat, Farah gave me a sample of the hummus and maust moosier (the fabulous shallot-yogurt dip) to go with my basil naan - this might be my new favorite naan here (it was always the sesame cumin naan). I finally settled on the Baughali Polo (lima-dill rice) - my old favorite along with a side of the eggplant ragout - absolutely divine. The lima-dill rice is perfectly cooked and incredibly fragrant - *so* good!

And obviously, I had to finish my meal with a cup of the minty green tea - the perfect end to a fabulous meal.

Sushi time - Aoki

2007-06-08T23:47:00.001-07:00

We've been lusting for sushi for a while now, but have been too lazy to make 'em rolls as yet. It was a nice evening, so we wandered around Cap'Hill and finally ended up at Aoki (the only decent sushi place we know on the hill right now).

So, it was .... "somewhat" decent, but barely. Actually, I think our first trip there was a lot better than this one. The edamame was weird - the shell kept peeling off in layers making it really hard to eat the peas. Quite irritating. The menu looked pretty good, so we ended up ordering these:

Spicy white tuna rolls - a variation! finally!! This was probably the best of the sushi we had that night. The fish was really tender, almost creamy, but definitely not spicy.
Broadway rolls - with salmon, alfalfa sprouts and some kind of roe - a little too smoky for us.
Veggie futomaki - this was really, really weird. Firstly, each roll was *huge* - about 3 mouthfuls. And it had waaaaay too much of rice in it, and was kind of dry.
Unagi - apparently decent, but not amazing
Spider rolls - these looked pretty good, and I guess they were :)

A decent experience, but there's got to be better sushi in Seattle! Or maybe we hit Aoki on an off-day!

Beans'n'Rice and Corn Maque Choux

2007-06-08T13:08:00.001-07:00

We figured it was time to try another recipe from our latest Jay Solomon book - fast becoming one of my favorite cookbooks now. This is the same book that I made the gratin from a while ago. He uses a West Indian recipe and recommends replacing some of the water for the rice with 1/2 cup of coconut milk to enhance flavors. Both the beans and rice were heavy on thyme (I like it way more than I realized!) and cumin (yum! nothing like fresh-ground cumin to enhance the aroma!). We threw in 1/2 cup of wine from one of the many bottles we brought back from BSM into the beans - good idea! I'm now curious about what kind of flavors wine adds to the food. Using a wine vinegar often imparts tartness accompanied by this aftersweet, but wine seems more complex.

Once the rice was cooked (the coconut milk was a killer idea), we mixed the beans and rice and let them simmer for ~ 10 minutes for the flavors to blend - and they did, quite happily!

Corn Maque Choux - Ok, I'm still trying to figure out how to pronounce this, but I'll eat it any day:
1 can corn (couldn't find fresh corn at MM that day)
1/2 bell pepper - chopped
1/2 sweet vidalia onion - chopped
1 tomato - chopped
1 tsp butter
4-5 garlic cloves - minced

Saute onions and garlic in butter till brown
Drain the water from the corn and keep aside
Throw in bell pepper, corn and tomatoes - let this cook for ~ 15 minutes
Add some of the drained water and let it simmer for 5 minutes
Add salt, pepper and a (big) dash of hot sauce
(I might try this with minced jalapenos next time around)

T-shirt of the day!

2007-06-03T23:15:00.001-07:00

This guy walking through Cal Anderson posed for us :)

Happy Ethiopian food!

2007-06-03T23:14:00.003-07:00

Queen Sheba is a happy place. Even if they have lame overpriced bottles of wine. It is a major desi hangout place, I remember hitting it for dindin every couple of weeks back when it was the only ethiopian place I knew in Seattle.

We headed up there after the Obama talk to have dindin with Autumn and Jeremy. We ended up with our staple - a couple of the veggie combo platters and a salad - usually quite yummy, and they kick it up with chopped jalapenos! But this time around, it was lame, seriously lame. A bunch of iceberg lettuce with wonks of tomatoes and little else - and seriously oversalted. They replaced it right away, but the second one wasn't that much better either. It doesn't seem to have the chopped onions anymore - sucks!

The platter was great, as always - even better with their house hot sauce. The lentils and peas were yummy, the cabbage was incredibly flavorful. The greens were a little bland, but still decent. The best part of the meal was the injera that lined the platter - it soaks up the flavors and juices from all the entrees and tastes simply divine! :)

I was poking around reading about Ethiopian food and read that the injera is literally used as a tablecloth for a meal - crazy!

And I just saw this great recipe archive that seems to have a ton of african recipes.

Sorella - bleh

2007-06-03T23:14:00.001-07:00

Biking to Madison Park left us famished. The problem was that we were craving brunch and the few brunch eateries there stop serving at 1 pm! That is plain wrong - they need to learn from all the great places up on Cap'Hill that dish out brunch till 3 pm!

So, after much fruitless wandering, we landed up at Sorella's - this pizza/pasta place near the water. Looked decent, pizza sounded passable, so we went in there. The guy who handled our order was plain weird - he seemed extremely flustered, even though the place was not packed and tried to rush us through our order. Autumn wanted one of her "custom" italian sodas with little fizz, lots of cream and flavoring. And he didn't seem to think she needed more cream!

Autumn: "I'd like extra cream in my soda"
Guy: "Oh, our sodas come with a lot of cream."
Autumn: "But I'd like more cream in mine."
Guy: "I don't think you'll need more."

Hmm ... wait, so he knows what she wants better than her now?

Autumn: "Well, I'd like some extra cream in it anyway!"
Guy: "I'll bring your soda. And if the cream isn't enough, I'll get you a couple of little containers of half'n'half!"

Give up, Autumn! Just drink that soda. Well, Jeremy will drink it anyway! And he did :)

So, back to our order. We're starving, so we order a 1/2 pesto, 1/2 cheese pizza. And the hummus appetizer that sounds yummy. Except it doesn't quite taste that great. The bread is awesome, the hummus ... tastes like store-bought. And swimming in a plate of oil. *bleh*

Ok, pizza is finally here. Hmm ... slathered in cheese. Not great. Not much to write home about.

Scratching Sorella off our M'Park restaurant options.

Wooooo - biking!

2007-06-03T23:13:00.002-07:00

Finally! First bike ride of the year! We mounted our bikes and headed off towards Madison Park with Autumn & Jeremy earlier today. We checked our route down there and back and yes, it seemed hilly, but we could do it, right? Well, I conveniently forgot that I'd just done 16 super hilly miles on saturday and my legs were quite tired. And that showed. Real soon!

Just the ride down to Madison Park from Pike isn't really all downhill. There were a couple of steep hills we needed to conquer before we finally started flying down the mountain - felt *so* good. That's one of my favorite parts of biking- the wind rushing in my face! So, we headed down to Madison Park Cafe for brunch - we'd heard good things about their food and were starving. So we go in, sit down, guzzle some agua and wait ... the waitress comes up and says "We've been really busy, so we're out of potatoes and spinach and ..."! What?! No breakfast potatoes?!! That sucks! So, we leave and scrounge around for another place to eat. We finally land up at Sorella's (we'll save the details for later!), finish up a very mediocre brunch and start biking back.

*wow* The hills seemed steeper on a full stomach! So, we weaved our way around, trying to find a flat side street to break the arduousness of the hills. We wrapped around the hill, up McGilvra to avoid directly cresting it - and it definitely helped some. My gears still seem a little flaky - got to figure out what's going on with that.

Pretty short route, but hard and fun, lots of fun!

BSM - yesssssss!!!

2007-06-03T23:13:00.001-07:00

The perfect birthday eve meal. Seriously, it couldn't get any better than this. And we got to see Vee and Martin for the second time in a week! Wooooo!! We finally got around to taking Bobbie and Nami up to BSM after months of threatening to drag them there. And Daria came with us too. *so* much of fun!

So, this is among our top 10 restaurants. *ever*. Even outside of the fact that our friends own the place :) I've had midnight cravings for the nudi ravioli - seriously mindblowing! And that is the only restaurant where I tried a steak - loved it!

We started off with a li'l snack - a thin tortilla chip with a pineapple-mango-onion-something else salsa that was fabulous - a perfect starter! I can still taste it in my mouth. And then the signature Bistro San Martini - *so* tasty!

We then ordered the asparagus (Daria and I can *never* resist fresh asparagus :)) and the ravioli. And Martin brought us a plate of stuffed tomatoes - *so* yummy! And then we sampled the cucumber soup - I'm not a fan of cucumber soup - ever since I had the weird cold cucumber -puree (aka soup!) at Ray's Boathouse, I've been semi-turned off on cucumber.

I got my usual veggie-surprise entree - roasted yams, potatoes, asparagus, beans on a bed of risotto with the trademark potato chip on top - *divine*! I couldn't eat it all there, so we got it boxed, but I quickly ate up the leftovers once we got home :) Pupp and Bobbie got the scallops - I tried one and it was really tasty, I might have to try it again sometime soon. Nami got the oven roasted chicken and loved it, Daria was pretty much drooling over her food, I didn't remember what she got, Pupp says she got the lamb chops. :)

Dessert was just one piece of the decadent Naughty Chocolate Cake with a hint of cayenne - delightful! And I even got a candle :)

We love that BSM - feels like home - fabulous food, lots of love and friends all around.

Dare to believe?

2007-06-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

We were at Obama's Seattle kickoff meeting last friday. I've never been to any political rally or event here, so it was pretty exciting. We're obviously democrat, but somewhat idealistic - we want change, we crave change, lots of positive change. We want reform - in healthcare, schools, taxes, the works. We want action on global warming, the Iraq war, the oil crisis, what not! And being an immigrant, I can't help but crave for healthy cross-nation relationships. Yes, quite idealistic :)

We were told that the event was starting at 5:30, so we ran in hoping to snag a decent spot. It was our first time at WaMu theater in Qwest Field - not a bad location. The swarm of general attendees (including us) stood in the main area in front of the stage while the pricier tickets sat farther behind on the sides. The place was quite packed, Seattle in general seems quite sympathetic towards Barack, so that wasn't surprising.

Anyway, the event started off with a welcome address and some entertainment -a little unexpected, but sounded interesting. They started off with some high energy african music and dance - really fun. The performers were pretty good, the crowd loved it! And then, this kid from Tacoma came on stage with his guitar - and started belting out some really morbid songs about death and hopelessness (?!!) - and he wasn't even a decent singer! *such* a relief when he finally went off stage!

Finally, Barack came on - very personable, warm and welcoming - guess being at your best is also made easier in such a friendly crowd! :) I was first drawn to Obama when he made that inspiring speech at the 2004 DNC. His earnestness and intensity struck a note that has seemed like a rarity for a while - I don't remember the last time that kind of sincerity resonated in a politician. I think his biggest draw is how he draws people together - seems like bringing the society and community together is the best way to actually force change - the whole "government of the people, by the people, for the people" thing. He touched all the subjects that matter to us, did not necessarily outline his path to getting there, but did deliver the message about the disparity between where we are and where we should be.

Obviously, he needs to start detailing his strategies and vision, where do we go and how do we get there. But this definitely seems like a decent start!

A birthday per calendar :)

2007-05-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

So, apparently today is my "star" birthday (according to the hindu calendar). So, this got us thinking about how solar and lunar calendars correlate. I've heard my dad talk about this (he's a serious astrology buff), but obviously it didn't stick :)

But why fear when Wikipedia is here! Which taught me the concept of a lunisolar calendar. And that intercalations are not just about adding a day for a leap year, but could also involve adding a week or even a month (like lunisolar calendars do every 2-3 years to match with the solar calendar). Which explains why solar and lunar birthdays are usually within a couple of weeks of each other.

Another interesting fact: apparently some lunisolar calendars can use the state of vegetation (depending on season, I guess) to determine when the leap month needs to be added! The Hindu calendar uses the phase of the moon to determine this.

This illustration of the hindu calendar simplifies a lot of the calculations of festival dates - which fall back by 11 days every year (because the lunar calendar has fixed months, but approximate years compared to the solar calendar).

Granville Island Vet Hospital - among the best!

2007-05-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

After an almost sleepless night with Vodka constantly shaking his head trying to clear his ears, I hopped on the internet to figure out what could be wrong. Hmm ... ear infection? Hematoma?!! Ear mites?!!! Eeeeek! Time to visit the vet! Except, we were in Vancouver. Wait, I have a vague memory of someone saying that the Granville Island Vet Hospital is pretty decent. And we were going to hit the public market anyway.

That hospital is awesome. I have pretty high standards after going to Redwood Animal Hospital, but this place rules. And Dr.Adam is awesome. Yes, it was a ear infection. And no ear mites! Phew! And she did a full physical on him. And I even got to peek into his gross ears :)

Ate a few treats, got a good brushing from the tech there and Vodka was all ready to go play again!

Thanks GIVH!

Whistler rocks - year round!

2007-05-31T08:43:00.001-07:00

We were in Whistler on sunday and finally got a chance to check out the new bike park. It looks awesome! Might just have to try that out this year :)

It is pretty cool to hit a place that still has spring skiing happening on one mountain, while the other mountain has its slopes paved for mountain biking trails. And they even had a li'l zipline going near the whistler gondola - very cool!

Since dogs are not allowed in the gondolas (sucks!), Vodka and I decided to hike up Blackcomb while my mum, et al went up the gondola. It was pretty fun, we just followed the path of the ropes up the mountain. It was a beautiful day, and the moutain looks so different without the snow. And it is steep! Just as we went up this wicked gully, I saw a black creature about 1/4 mile up the mountain. Wait, make that 2 creatures. Mama bear and baby bear! Weeeee!!! First wildlife sighting in Whistler (and I don't have a pic :( ). We wandered up another 100m or so, but I decided to turn back - didn't think Vodka would end up protecting me from a disgruntled mama bear! :)

House of Dosas - quite yummy!

2007-05-31T08:42:00.001-07:00

As part of our quest for desi food in Vancouver, we hit House of Dosas on Kingsway - the place had no ambience whatsoever, but we heard good reviews about it.

The menu had enough dosa options to justify the name, so we got all excited! We started off with the pakoras (my mum was really leery about this, she didn't think the place "looked" desi enough!), but these were among the best restaurant pakoras we've had in a while. *yum* Then we ordered several dosas - the madras masala, paneer dosa and even an uthappam - which was awesome! The dosas were slightly tart, just the way we like it. And the paper dosa was super crisp and hot.

The carrot chutney was real tasty, but the sambar left a lot to be desired - not spicy enough, and definitely lacked tamarind. The one weird thing was that they had run out of idli podi (it was called "gunpowder" on the menu :) ) - that is plain wrong! No south indian restaurant should *ever* run out of this!

And we loved that the plates were all shaped like banana leaves - in fact, we initially thought that they were serving us on fresh leaves - nice touch! :) And the waiter talked to us in Tamil, haven't heard that in a restaurant in a while! Next time, I'll have to try their rava dosa.

The new and huge La Spiga

2007-05-31T08:41:00.000-07:00

So, we finally got to check out La Spiga after they moved into their new location on 12th. This place is ginormous (the Lipp should've trademarked that word when he could've!). And we dindined with Vee and Martin (*yay*!)

Verdict:
The space is incredible - we were gawking at the high ceilings and the stark interior all evening. The patio is awesome - especially the chef's table. The huge inside space is well partitioned by the booths in the middle and the long couch - love that couch! And the decor is great - lots of old copper pots and pans on shelves, stark lighting, solid wooden tables, very nice.

The food - Not mindblowing, but pretty good. I'll give it a 3/5. The piadinas - as good as ever! The appetizers and salads looked a lot more interesting than the entrees. The roasted beet salad was pretty good, as was the cheese plate (especially that super creamy stinky brie!). My lentil&tomato soup was clearly oversalted and the flavors did not really stand out. The roasted potatoes were disappointing too - some of them seemed too dry, though drenched in olive oil. Pupp liked his risotto (the zucchini base was an interesting twist), Vee thought the pork was pretty decent and Martin said the lasagna was passable (this coming from the guy who makes the best lasagna I've *ever* eaten in my life!).

The wine list looks pretty impressive, and the Barolo we ordered was delicious.

Eat Gratin, be happy!

2007-05-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

So behind on my postings. *sigh*

So, I finally got to try out a recipe from the latest Jay Solomon book that I bought a couple of weeks ago (Taste of the Tropics) - I love, absolutely love this book! I started off wanting to make this squash and scallions gratin, but I had no squash! Or scallions! But I did have a ton of fresh asparagus :) And shallots :)

Asparagus and Shallots Gratin
=======================
1 bundle asparagus - chopped into 1' pieces
1 T olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced (yes, I went overboard, like always!)
4-6 shallots - chopped fine
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup milk
1/2 t dried thyme
1 t ground black pepper
1/4 t allspice
1/2 t sea salt

Heat oven to 350F.

Lightly saute the asparagus and shallots in olive oil, add spices and coconut milk and let it simmer for 5-7 minutes. Add the milk and simmer for another 3-4 minutes.
Oooppppsss! Apparently, I needed breadcrumbs to get the crunchy consistency for the gratin. Hmm, let's use tortilla chips instead. So, I broke up a bunch of chips, tossed them into the veggie mixture, and poured it all into a casserole and let bake for 10-12 minutes.

Add a dash of hot sauce and some flatbread = *happy*

Origin (of original recipe :) ) : West Indies

Icon Grill - ick

2007-05-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

Icon has a new mac'n'cheese appetizer - fried mac with a jalapeno queso dip. Woooo!!! Somehow, they just managed to make a bigger artery clogger than their regular mac'n'cheese :) It does taste yummy, but that was the beginning and end of the good food at Icon.

To start off, our waitress got our drinks all mixed up - strangely enough, she heard 'Orange Drop' as 'Bartender's Margarita' - we were quite puzzled when our drinks didn't show up in cocktail glasses, and even more stymied when they tasted of tequila!

The menu had an interesting sounding tuna entree - thinly sliced, seared ahi tuna with a wasabi vinaigrette based salad - sounds good? That's what I thought too. And I ordered it. My first seafood entree ever! *so* excited. Until the food appeared. Somehow, my tuna had transformed into this giant thickly sliced steak-like "thingy". Ok, fine, I'm not intimidated (yet!), I'll try it ... one mouthful ... *ick*. This tuna tasted like it had absorbed all the salt in the ocean and then some! And it tasted like leather. *bleh*. And that damn salad was replete with celery. *grr*. Our other entree was the rock shrimp penne - apparently quite passable, that was a relief.

Yes, we complained about it. Yes, they took it off the tab. But for something that gross, they should really be paying me for it!

Flatbread Pizzas - a yummy snack!

2007-05-21T10:34:00.001-07:00

Last week, I was craving pizza, but not the super greasy cheesy kind. I wanted the light flavorful kind I had eaten in Greece a few years ago. And I wanted it fast! :) And Trader Joe's helped me out here (I *love* that store!) with their mediterranean flatbread. I made this olive-garlic-tomato tapenade that I spread on the flatbread, loaded it up with sliced red onions, thinly sliced potatoes, olives and sprinkled it with this divine gouda laced with fennel. And baked it for about 8 minutes at 400F.

*drool*

Monsoon - yum

2007-05-21T10:33:00.001-07:00

We were craving pan-Asian food and decided to hit Monsoon last friday. And it made us *happy*, very *happy*.

We ordered this Pinot Noir from Andrew Rich Wines that totally knocked our socks off - we actually finished up the entire bottle in the restaurant and tottered out feeling quite blissful! Seems like WSJ liked it quite a bit too!

Monsoon is one of those restaurants where I have such a hard time deciding what I want to eat - the plethora of choice astounds me :) And now that I'm dabbling in seafood, it gets even harder! So, after much dithering, we had to go for my old faves - the crispy tofu with peppers and mushrooms (the caramelized onions were divine) as well as the green beans with kabocha squash. Ok, this was simply fabulous. The squash was *so* incredibly flavorful, I'm at a total loss for words to explain it. Well, pupp ate it :) And the halibut - Oh so good!!! It originally tasted a little bland, but dribbling a little soy sauce on it made a world of difference - the super flaky fish suddenly exploded with flavor! And the morning glory salad was so refreshing - *very* unique.

*drool*

Gipsy Kings - @ the Paramount

2007-05-21T10:28:00.001-07:00

Finally, finally, we got to watch the Gipsy Kings live on saturday. We were really hoping that they would feature in the Chateau Ste Michelle summer concert line-up (which seems reasonably unexciting this year), but that was not to be. I've always liked the acoustics at the Paramount - admittedly, I've watched more shows and musicals there than concerts, but the sound plus the ambience (I loooovvve those fabulous ceilings!) always seemed to create a pleasant experience, so this actually seemed like a pretty good alternative. And once we got there (seated in the middle of the first balcony), we got quite excited about the show.

The instruments were awesome - amazing strumming at lightning speeds, incredible drums, even the keyboard guy was belting out some mean tunes! What was disappointing? The vocals! Somehow, it seemed like the vocal microphones didn't quite cut it and the usually resonant voices sounded quite muted and fuzzy. Quite a disappointment.

Still, it was still a really fun show. Those damn fire codes prevented us from dancing away in the open spaces in the balcony, but we still shook it as much as we could :) I absolutely love flamenco music, and I especially love GK - they've made the music more approachable and open and joyful. And yes, they did perform our faves: La Dona, Bamboleo, Volare, Bem Bem Maria, ... the works!

*happy* :)

International Potluck Night

2007-05-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

a.k.a. - Serious food orgy! :)

Waaaay overdue post! A few weeks ago, I think Autumn and Lisa came up with this idea of doing a potluck where we all cooked food from cuisines that we hadn't really cooked much from before. Such a great idea. So we planned it out, May 19th was the day - at Daria's place, perfect way to warm her new house (and take her cute kitchen apart! :))

This is how we did it: each person/couple wrote out a country on a scrap of paper and we then drew lots. Daria got Vietnam, T&A got Russia, C&L - Costa Rica, A&J - Indonesia, us - Japan. And Jeremy picked Switzerland for dessert (apparently his initial choice - Australia is not sweet-friendly! :) and we picked Italy.

It was fun! And super yummy! And we kind of ended up with a good assortment of food. We tried to replicate the famous Dark Army from Vij as the drink of the eve. It turned out pretty decent, but could be better.

Basic Recipe:
===========
A shot each of lemon-ginger juice, simple syrup, mango juice, lime juice. Muddle these up with 1-1.5 shots of amber rum. Serve on ice. Sprinkle with a pinch of freshly ground garam masala. *hic*!

We started off noshing on these yummy baked plantains with guacamole and a blackbean dip (Costa Rica). The Russian entree was beety borscht along with this dark rye-like bread (lame! I've already forgotten what it actually had!). The borscht was really flavorful and smooth. The Vietnamese salad was awesome - it had mangoes, it *had* to be awesome! :) The noodle salad was super yummy too - the spicy limey dressing was seriously tasty - I was ready to drink it up! The tilapia on a bed of rice/beans/oranges/veggies was really light and flavorful.

And we made sushi - our first attempt! Obviously, spicy tuna rolls (we couldn't really find any other sushi grade fish at Whole Foods!). The tuna was so tasty - almost melting in the mouth. We marinated it in a sauce of the Snappy Dragon spicy sauce (*so* good!) along with a little wasabi. After marinating for a few hours, we rolled it with scallions, avocados and some stealth wasabi. The rolls came out looking *okay*, they definitely got better as we rolled more. And Pupp's rolling was *way* better than mine! :) But it was fun, we loved it and we'll do it again!

Dessert was this great chocolate cake with a mop of frosting - very yummy! We made this Cassata alla Siciliana - it was a serious flop! *so* sad! Firstly, the pound cake from Whole Foods was awful - dense and lifeless. And we could not find any candied fruit, so we used chopped dried fruits - NOT the same. *bleh*. I'll have to rework this recipe sometime.

Anyway, Daria's house was well-warmed (and a minor mess!). *happy*

Soup of the day - Beetless Borscht

2007-05-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

Actually, soup of the friday before last :)

My mom and I were talking about soup recipes and we decided to try out this beetless borscht - a sweet'n'sour version of it. We made this one with oodles of cabbage (PCC has been carrying some really fresh and flavorful cabbage lately) and a bunch of fresh corn and it turned out great. A really light soup - very drinkable on a warm evening.

Recipe:
======
1 cabbage - grated - I usually hand cut them instead of using a food processor, the longer strands of cabbage seem to give out more flavor
4 ears of yellow corn - steam these and scrape off the kernels
1 red onion - finely chopped
4 T rice vinegar
1 t balsamic vinegar
1T brown sugar
freshly ground pepper, kosher salt
fresh dill
2" ginger, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 green chilly - all ground up
a li'l olive oil

Saute the onion in the olive oil, add the G+G+G paste to it.
Once the onions seem cooked, add the cabbage cook covered till the cabbage is mostly done.
Add the corn kernels and cook some more (covered)
Once the veggies look cooked, add the vinegar, sugar, dill, pepper and salt.
Simmer uncovered for 2-3 minutes.
Use a hand blender to puree the soup a little - this blends the flavors, but does not make the soup creamy and smooth like the regular borscht - which works much better with the sweet'n'sour flavors of this soup.

Perfect accompaniment: potato bread (especially if it is from Macrina :) )

Vancouver - A gastronomic adventure - Part II

2007-05-14T07:13:00.001-07:00

Sunday morning, Vodka and I headed off to one of our top 10 running spots - Stanley Park. The weather was much cooler than expected, but the light drizzle was really refreshing. And Vodka had a blast trying to catch the raindrops in his mouth :) This was supposed to be a long run day, but expecting to run 16 miles with Vodka is ... sheer foolishness! So, we ran 6 miles instead - around Lost Lagoon - and we saw *so* many birds - swans, Canadian geese and even a couple of blue herons.

I've heard a lot about how cool Kitsilano is, but had only been there once - so decided to find a brunch place there. We walked all around the neighborhood (it is really pretty), headed down to the beach - really fun (in spite of how cold it had gotten), can't wait to head there on a warm sunny day. We finally headed into Sophie's Cosmic Cafe for brunch - several folks have commented about this being a touristy brunch spot, but I loved it. I went on my benedict quest and this one definitely passed the test - eggs came hard poached like requested, the hollandaise was really light and flavorful and the potatoes were fabulous! Except I got enough to keep me going for another 2 meals! And they even have a house hot sauce - not fiery enough for me, but really tart and tasty!

Vancouver - A gastronomic adventure - Part I

2007-05-14T07:12:00.001-07:00

*lots* to catch up on, this last week has been way too busy!

So, last weekend was a long-awaited trip up to Vancouver - delightful as always. Obviously, we stayed at our fave hotel - Pacific Palisades where Vodka was treated like royalty - he even got his own doggy basket of goodies! :)

We've never really explored Gastown before, so Vodka and I wandered off to check out the oldest neighborhood of Vancouver - reminds me a lot of Pioneer Square - paved stone streets, some derelict buildings, but oozing old world charm. We hit this really fun restaurant/lounge - Chill Winston. They have a great cocktail list and some really fun food too - a thin-crust pizza with a garlic-chickpea base with cauliflowers, broccoli and onions - very different, very tasty. But the killer was the organic greens salad - one of the best I've ever had - the fig and grapeseed oil vinaigrette was fabulous.

And obviously, we hit Vij's for dinner! And it was divine, like always. Seriously, Vij's is the biggest inspiration for the restaurant that I hope to have someday. I love everything about this place - hanging out at the bar sipping a Mangalore (or my new fave - the Dark Army), nibbling on the delicious snacks from the trays that are constantly passed around, chatting with the staff there who are more than happy to share their incredibly imaginative recipe ideas, watching Vikram wander around his restaurant constantly checking on his guests. And to top it all, the food is *divine*. Like always, I ordered the jackfruit in the cardamom and cumin masala - this is definitely in my top 10 appetizers ever. And this time, we tried a new entree - zucchini koftas in a pomegranate curry - fabulous. And the laddoos were to die for - freshly made khoa blended with sugar and crushed almonds. *yum*

The new Spazzo

2007-05-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

My friend Vimla and I headed to the newly opened Spazzo in Redmond Town Center for lunch yesterday. We used to love the original Spazzo's (in the top floor of the Key Bank building when it was dishing out really fun greek food) and were really sorry to see it go.

The new Spazzo is huge, sleek and was packed for lunch, and we could only snag an uncomfortably positioned table in the bar area. We started off with ... a glass of water :) Their water was yummy - steeped with lemon and cucumber (never had that before)! We weren't super hungry so we just had the funghi with polenta and shaved parmesan - really tasty, but they went overboard with the truffle oil. The Roquette salad was great - it had a peppery vinaigrette dressing and came with these divine roasted bell peppers.

Got to go back for dinner (even if it is in boring RTC!)

An almost perfect dinner

2007-05-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

And I'm only saying that because nothing is perfect, right? (And there was no tuna in our meal!)

Last night, we made the simplest, most flavorful blackbean soup we've ever had. I wasn't super convinced about the recipe when we started, it almost seemed too simple - no tomatoes, no corn, hmm ... was this going to be super plain? No! It was absolutely divine. Really flavorful and light. The recipe called for a tsp of sugar, but we tossed in 1/2 cup of white wine instead and it totally did the trick. Also, we added a ton of garlic (obviously!) and some grated ginger too which gave the soup some extra zing.
Recipe source: Soup, a Way of Life

I absolutely loved the rice dish we also cooked up (apparently, it was carbo-load day!) - probably my fave coconut rice ever. Growing up, we always ate coconut rice containing freshly grated coconut and spices. But this time, we cooked the rice in unsweetened diluted coconut milk instead. Threw in a bunch of roasted cashews, spiced it with roasted red chillies, cumin, mustard and urad dal ==> *very* happy!

And we opened our first white wine of the season - an Albarino - *delicious*!

Cafe Campagne - a must for brunch

2007-05-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Lauren and I headed to the market this morning in our quest for brunch and decided to brave the wait at Campagne. And it was truly worth the wait. I've always felt that their breakfast potatoes are among the best I've ever had. And today we discovered that their Oeufs de cocotte is absolutely divine (Artery-clogging? Probably, but absolutely worth it!). The eggs were perfectly done (obviously hard poached!) and tasted fabulous with the leek cream - which was so light and flavorful, topped off with just the right amount of freshly ground pepper. And the baguette was so crunchy and fresh, perfect for cleaning up the last dregs of the leek cream in our mini skillets :)

And they do dish up a pretty happy mocha too!

The best tater tots ever!

2007-05-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

I was famished after my long run yesterday and was craving a sandwich, or maybe potatoes! But it was late - past 4 pm, so my choices were limited. I was originally headed for the Baguette Box (they serve a divine squash sandwich!), but detoured, for reasons unknown, to the Six Arms instead. And found that they have tater tots on their menu! Wait, they have cajun tater tots! *sweet*! I mean *spicy*! And yummy!

The new Asteroid Cafe - good as ever!

2007-05-05T00:58:00.000-07:00

We hit the Asteroid for a Dining Out for Life dindin. It was our first visit to the new digs in Fremont - vastly different from the original cozy layout in Wallingford. The new space is *huge*! It looks pretty cool but doesn't quite have the personal feel of the old space.

We ordered a bottle of the tried and tested Renato Ratti - yummy as ever! The appetizer of the day was bruschette brushed with 2 dips - the first one was an eggplant concoction, the second had a parsnip base - very different, it had an almost limey tangy aftertaste.

I got the Penne al Pomodoro - the goat cheese was divine - the last time I had such fresh goat cheese was at the Madison farmers' market last october! The penne was al dente, the tomatoes were fresh, all typical of good old Asteroid. Pupp got the pork special with polenta (seemed a little too runny, but tasted good). Obviously, I ate all the asparagus (Yay! for the fresh crop!) and we got a side of absolutely delicious, perfectly cooked fingerling potatoes. I can't wait to cook more of these (the Broadway Market often carries the best fingerlings!)

All in all, the meal made us *happy*! :)

Also, we noticed that they have a fabulous cocktail happy hour that lasts till midnight - a good option the next time we hit a show in Fremont.

GH II - wow!

2007-05-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

This has got to be one of the most entertaining games *ever* made (not like I'm any expert on games!) - I can't wait to play this again. And that is inspite of how much I suck at it. After failing to even finish 'Sweet Child of Mine' twice in a row, I finally racked up a passing percentage (that I've obviously forgotten! :) ). But last night was pretty fun and I even managed to sneak in a medium game (courtesy of Autumn who has become a serious GH junkie!).

And the horse head cheat is a total riot!

Most common review comment for GH II: "Highly addictive." I've got to agree, I even dreamt of this game last night!

That Cafe Flora

2007-05-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

dishes up a pretty yummy brunch. We finally managed to get in there on sunday without an hour long wait (we called and put our names down, *so* clever!)

I can't remember the last time I got anything sweet for brunch, but the waffle looked *so* delicious that I finally went for it (obviously after waffling over several of the egg dishes and finally running behind the waiter to change my order!) The apples were delicious with just the right hint of cinnamon and the waffle was really light and crispy. And I had the polenta to offset the sweetness, so I was happy. And pupp's spinach scramble was quite tasty too!

Oh, they also make a really strong mocha. Kept me bouncing the rest of the day.

We love you, Black Cod!

2007-05-02T22:08:00.002-07:00

Actually, we love eating you! (Sorry!)

We had a whole bunch of cod sitting in the freezer, so we decided to try something new in honor of Daria. After much debating, we settled on this sesame glaze recipe from FoodTV. But, but we couldn't grill it!!! So, we marinated it instead and sauteed it in one of those fabulous copper bottom pans. Funny what a difference that makes! The cod was fabulous, but we overglazed it - the sauce was really potent and we had originally portioned it for a lot more fish, but decided we didn't need that much fish (and obviously forgot to cut down on our glaze portions!) :)

Our sides were pretty yummy - seasoned asparagus, baked potatoes and carrots and ... mac'n'cheese! Weeee!!!

Konono No1 - #1? Hell, yes!

2007-05-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

I love african beats. And I love the uniqueness of this band - their primary instrument is the likembe - except it is hooked upto these homemade megaphones. Add to that some incredible drums, a couple of deep african vocalists who can truly shake a leg and you have a really fun show.

The music was a lot more trancy than we expected, but it almost seemed to have a rock aspect to it too (maybe because of the drums? maybe because of the decibel level?) It was definitely repetitive, but incredibly dancy - almost seemed like our feet could move reflexively to the music. Very comforting and earthy :)

This was the first time I heard Konono and I found them really fascinating. The female vocalist was awesome - she reminded me a lot of Janelle (my first afro-cuban teacher who so rhythmically shook her booty in spite of her bulging 7 month belly!). The male singer was a blast, high-energy and he loved showing us his dance moves. But my fave was the older thumb-pianist. (Guess this was Mingiedi - the founder) - he seemed so blissful playing his likembe.

The Triple Door mentioned that they were going to move stuff around to make dancing room and we were wondering how they could "move" seating around in the Mainstage area. Well, they didn't! They just didn't put any extra tables in the front area - so we had about a 5' wide stretch to cram all our dancing selves into!

Very fun, can't wait to hear them again!

Picoso - so much of fun!

2007-04-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, we hit Tost to hear Picoso - a high energy local band playing fun latin music that make your feet go *tap* *tap*! I was a little leery about being able to dance at Tost - such a small space and somehow never seemed conducive to shaking it. But this time was fun, the beats were great, crowd was totally into the music and it was one big party!

And it looks like they're @ Nectar in a couple of weeks.

*yay*! Seattle finally has a decent salsa music scene :)

Chiso - so good!

2007-04-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

We hit Chiso in Fremont last night for some yummy sushi. And some yummy cocktails -they have a great ginger-pear martini and a killer mojito. We also sampled some decent sake - the nigori is the first unfiltered sake I've ever had - it was milky and reminded us of ouzo (which made us go 'Opa!' as we drank it, much to the amusement of people around us :))

We started with a large order of edamame - it was a seriously large bowlful and took us some effort to finish it off :) *so* good!

Obviously, we had to eat the spicy tuna roll - very good. The tuna was super tender and very flavorful. The negihama (yellowtail and green onions) was great - a first for me, I really want to try the yellowtail nigiri now! The futo maki was delicious - the gourd was a lot tastier than I expected. Apparently, the maguro and spider rolls were pretty happy too.

I just checked out the menu and they seem to have a pretty large non-sushi menu too. Can't wait to head back!

Keep those Bloody Marys comin'!

2007-04-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

So, apparently fruity cocktails qualify as health food now. Guess I should start spiking my smoothies with a shot of rum to make sure I get *all* the goodness :)

Hmm ... maybe Happy Hour needs to become Healthy Hour?

Cute, cute Vodka!

2007-04-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

I rediscovered this pic of Vodka - taken when he was 3-4 months old. *so* cute! :)

Mega desi food night

2007-04-19T23:56:00.000-07:00

So, apparently it was the day for many left knees to get injured. Vodka's in sick bay, his left knee is possibly sprained (I hope that's all it is and not a damaged ligament :( ). So, I made him a whole bunch of oatmeal apple cookies, he was quite happy!

My mum hurt her knee and is hobbling around! So, I did a desi food cookout for her, pretty fun!

Gobi & Broccoli Jalfrezi
====================
One of my fave desi cookbooks has an awesome recipe for Gobi Jalfrezi, I added some broccoli to this and it definitely enhanced the flavors. I pureed some roma tomatoes and garlic along with freshly ground spices (cloves, bay leaves, coriander, cinnamon, kalonji) - this made for a great gravy base. It tasted much, much better than using tomato paste and regular garam masala!

Baingan Bartha
==============
I love BB - one of the first edible dishes I cooked when I came to the U.S. (lifted off the amazing S.O.A.R. - desis often called it Bangin' Bart!) So, I made this a little differently - I used a giant eggplant as well as yellow squashes -cut them in halves lengthwise and broiled them for about 20 minutes. The sauce was minced red onions, ginger, garlic, green chillies and coconut (that was a definite twist, BB never has coconut). It turned out decent, the only thing that went wrong is that I didn't peel the eggplant and the peel was somewhat bitter. So, I had to enhance the flavors with a sweet'n'sour mix (a spoon of brown sugar + white vinegar + lemon juice). It did the trick, but next time, I'll remove the peel :)

Dal
====
Nothing like good ole tuvar dal cooked up with sauteed bell peppers and onions. Perfect comfort food.

Rice Pilaf
=========
I cooked up this wild rice mix from PCC - it took forever to cook, but tasted yummy - some bits were juicy and chewy, others were soft, we loved it! Amma had the great idea of seasoning it with some roasted cumin, mustard, julienned ginger and red chillies. We threw in a ton of chopped cilantro and it tasted great!

*burp* :)

Yummy local produce

2007-04-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, we hit a farmers' market for the first time this season - the Ballard market (open year around) is awesome - we picked up crisp asparagus, carrots and this amazingly creamy jalapeno-habanero cheese from there.

So, this has gotten us thinking about possibly getting local produce delivered regularly. I was reading about community-supported agriculture (CSA) which lets us pay upfront for a regular delivery of in-season fruits/veggies/meats - I like the surprise factor here, seems like a great way to experiment with produce that we often overlook when we hit the market (Not sure if Pupp would agree with this :)) Except, according to this harvest schedule, we'll have to eat potatoes and potatoes alone all through April. :) Maybe we'll try it out anyway, April could just be our carbo-load month!

We're considering getting the Pioneer Organics delivery, but I'm also tempted to just stick with regular visits to the farmers markets - there is something incredibly satisfying about feeling, smelling and choosing the produce.

First visit to Safeco in 2007

2007-04-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

Felix was pitching. And Don is visiting. *so* exciting. We headed off to Safeco last night to watch our King perform against the Twins. I had all these visions in my head of another shutout. I had finally got around to watching Felix's last game - the first b'ball game I've watched in a looong time) and he is quite astounding! We had fabulous seats (139, row 14!!), it was a great night, there were really entertaining people sitting around us (especially Robert next to me who had an opinion about everything under the sun!) and King Felix was on the mound!

*so* much of fun. Hmm ... maybe? Ball, ball, maybe a strike, many more balls. Hmm ... what happened to our phenom?!! And soon, after 24 pitches, still well in the first inning, the King walked off his throne :( "Tightness in the elbow"!!! No! That was the end of Felix for the night :( The game eventually got much better, the Ms really fought it out, we almost tied the game, and we had a blast!

Yay for baseball!

Mmm ... black cod :)

2007-04-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

I *do* like fish (I *do* feel bad eating it, but obviously not enough to not be eating it :) ).

So, we went on this major cooking mission for our friends who came over to see Monty on tuesday. It was actually the first time that we cooked black cod, took a lot longer to prepare and assemble (we were doing it for 9 people!).

I often have this image (replete with sights, sounds and smells :)) in my head of how I envision a recipe to turn out, so it is obviously a good thing when I recognize the flavors and texture I expected. But it gets even better when I notice unexpected flavors that I like. So, that was the story with Mr.Black Cod (atleast for me) - the lemon-caper sauce worked really well with the delicate fish and dill added the right amount of flavor (I think a stronger herb like oregano or thyme would have made Mr.Cod unhappy). But the surprise flavor here seemed to be the mustard - I liked the earthy smell that freshly crushed brown mustard added to the fish (very different from adding yellow mustard powder) - I would go with an even stronger mustard flavor next time - maybe a rubbing of coarsely crushed mustard and peppercorns?

The other lesson for next time - we could have easily cut the baketime by 10 minutes. Cod seems even more delicate than rockfish, it definitely does not need an hour in the oven!

The puy lentil salad was decent - not as amazing as I'd have liked it to be, mostly because I cooked the lentils perfectly, but forgot to rinse them out and add a little oil, so they got all sticky. And I made too much of it, so it got really hard to toss the lentils with the tomatoes and pineapple. And it did not help that all these monkeys ate up the pineapple! *unbelievable* :)
And my poor shallots could not lend flavor because of the lentil overdose. *sigh*

The asparagus was happy. (Special order for the Abster - our resident almost-vegetarian who loves the bacon and hates half the veggies in the world!)

Fun times. Especially with Montster around :)

Yeeeeessshhhhh!

2007-04-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

So, the headlines in most indian papers today was about Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty - here, here, and here, even here!!! Yes, I'm sure this could qualify as earth-shattering news.

Hmm ... Gere does look like he's lost it! :)

I like this response!

Yay for Yoga!

2007-04-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

After much procrastination, I restarted yoga last week. And it was blissful! The class I attended was definitely not traditional or hot yoga, but more a core yoga class that focused on developing the energy that we draw from our core. Sounds esoteric, eh? Well, it was pretty good. But not intense enough for me. Plus, the class was only an hour long.

After doing much hatha yoga growing up, I always thought I would find Bikram yoga too faddish. But I was hooked from the day I started it. I find the repetitive aspect (every class consists of 26 asanas plus 2 breathing exercises) of hot yoga incredibly soothing. Hatha yoga is still my fave, but I've found that a combination of both works wonders.

BTW, this pic (from wikipedia) cracks me up. I cannot conceive of a woman wearing a leotard and doing yoga outside a temple in India! :)

Chole makes life so much bettah!

2007-04-16T22:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I ate what seemed like the *best* chole I've had in a loooonnngg time! *so* good! The red onions, ginger and garlic worked wonders with the garbanzo beans. Seriously, Trader Joe's has the best canned garbanzo on this planet (the organic ones taste *much* better than the regular). I added an extra dash of fennel like my mom always does, and it seemed to kick up the flavors quite a bit. Instead of making chapathis, I just ate this with TJ's flatbread. Food always tastes so much better after running!

Aww ... now I'm all nostalgic for that fabulous bombay street food. *sigh*

Those damn Aussies

2007-04-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable! Truly unbelievable! The Aussies are on a 20-match winning streak in the World Cup. *grr*.

I was really hoping that SL would beat them today, in spite of their skeleton team. Apparently not. The aussies are almost invincible. SL really really needed the mojo of Muttiah and Malinga today. And they needed a better score to defend that 226 - that is a totally defendable score against most teams, but not AUS who ended up with a 7 wicket victory. Wow.

Some folks think that SL played its cards well by resting players and masking their strategy. *so* exciting! Can't wait for the semi finals now :)

5 Spot disappoints!

2007-04-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

So, we hit our familiar haunt for a late dindin on friday. I was starving (like always!) and the Tacos special looked really appetizing. Maybe I was sold on the grandeur of the name 'Rio Bravo Del Norte Tacos' - any food from the northern brave river ought to taste yummy, right? :)

Well ... no. It was mediocre. And I was disappointed. The guajillo salsa on the tacos was heavy and overwhelming, the rice'n'bean cakes were too dry. I couldn't really taste the flavors of the red chard :(. The jicama salsa however was a hit, crunchy and flavorful. Pupp seemed to like the potato soup ok (but isn't it quite hard to go wrong with tater soup?).

Oh well!

Olive dosas?!! Woo Hoo!

2007-04-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

So, I felt like dosas for dindin, but wanted something different. So, I decided to season the dosas with an olive tapenade. I had to use makings from my fridge, so this is what went into my tapenade:
* A handful of finely chopped green olives
* 1/2 chopped tomato
* 8-10 chopped capers
* A lil vinegar
* One chopped pickled jalapeno
* A dash of olive oil (first press)
* salt'n'freshly ground peppa

I loved the slightly pungent flavor that the olives lent to the dosas! I made this chutney to go with the dosas:
* Roast a handful of peanuts with 2-3 red chillies and a couple of diced up carrots. Grind these up with some cilantro. Add 1-2 T lemon juice to this chutney. *yum*! A variation on the peanut chutney that Kimo used to make for me as a kid.

Those fabulous Sri Lankans!

2007-04-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

A 6-wicket win! Weeee!

I'm hoping most folks got to watch SL's match against New Zealand yesterday. Muttiah and Vaas held the kiwis at bay and restricted their total to a modest 219 for 7. Pretty awesome given that SL was playing without Malinga! Styris was the lone fighter for NZ who scored 111*. And it just took some steady batting from the Lankans (Jayasuriya - 64, Sangakkara - 69*) to finish with 222-4.

Seriously, SL is the most entertaining team in the World Cup so far. They have high-energy fans, incredibly talented players, a WC title in their pocket, almost retired players who are still so incredibly passionate about the sport and they come from a beautiful, but highly troubled country that has had limited resources to spare for developing the sport. Mukul Kesavan says it all in his blog here.

Go Lankans!

Aparna Sen excels again

2007-04-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last night, I watched Mr. & Mrs.Iyer - probably one of the best indian movies I've watched recently. Aparna's last creation was Paromitar Ek Din - a great movie focusing on the relationship between a mother and her ex-daughter in law. And her latest does not disappoint. With a fabulous score by Zakir Hussain, the film is incredibly poignant and moving. Konkona SenSharma (as Mrs. Iyer) is amazing - her eyes speak a thousand words as her conservative sensitivities are confused by the communal conflict around her. Rahul Bose plays the charming wildlife photographer Raja who Meenakshi is drawn to in a time of need. The movie subtly exposes Meenakshi's social and emotional awakening as she and Raja try to escape the communal violence.

This masterful movie reminds me of another of my favorites - Before Sunset.

Mexican Minestrone - yum

2007-04-12T23:17:00.000-07:00

Last night, we were ready for a *hot* sopa from the famous Great Bowls of Fire. Of course, we skipped the parsley in favor of loads of cilantro, and replacing the oregano with a dash of coriander seemed like the right thing to do.

*so* good!

Thanks Pupp! Thanks, GBF!

And our next Jay Solomon book is on its way.

Heroes! Heroes!

2007-04-12T23:01:00.000-07:00

We've watched 10 episodes of the show so far and it totally rocks! I can't wait to watch more of it, especially of Hiro - got to love his teleporting :) Heroes seems like a much more human version of X-Men (*love* it!). It does have its moments of lassitude, but for the most part it seems really gripping. Niki's story seems the least interesting so far, and it is definitely not helped by the precocious kid of hers who has all the makings of a super superhero! *grr* :)

The diversity of the heroes and they way they seem to discover their talents (of sorts!) is really quirky - a definite plus for the show. A couple of episodes ago, it seemed like there was too much of character hopping, we were getting these fleeting glimpses of happenings across several heroes' lives - and it felt way too frantic. But the show seems to have settled down more now, with the story of Claire ostensibly holding a key to the unravelling story. And we're heading into Sylar's story too - *so* gripping!

I'm really dreading the end of the season and having to wait forever before the next season kicks in - this is why I hate watching current TV shows!

I love cabbage!

2007-04-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

Seriously, cabbage rocks. And I have such great memories of it from growing up - cabbage curry, cabbage koottu, cabbage usili *yum*! And tonight, I was craving cabbage cooked indian style. So, I chopped it up (I *love* cutting cabbage) and made a curry with a seasoning of black mustard, urad dal, fresh ground red chillies and sea salt. I finally garnished it with lightly roasted coconut flakes and cilantro.

Brassica makes me very happy :)

Can't wait to try out this hungarian cabbage soup recipe that I found over the weekend. Obviously, I'll use veggie stock. Also, I'll probably use a red wine reduction or simmer the cabbage in red wine vinegar.

Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu

2007-04-09T00:05:00.001-07:00

I watched Kamal's latest movie last week after hearing pretty much everyone rave about how great it was. And I liked it. Not one of his best movies (think Nayagan, Thevar Magan, Moondraam Pirai, I could go on!) , but it definitely was not bad. He went a little overboard with the gore, and there were one too many cliched dialogues, but overall, I thought it was pretty well done. I'm sure many non-desis will be quite amused that an ostensibly serious film about serial killers is a "musical". Branding any desi movie with songs (which is pretty much every desi movie :)) a musical sounds so odd to me, songs and dance are such an integral aspect of the desi film scene!

Anyway, VV was quite alright - a pleasant surprise after the mediocre trailers! Jyothika was cute but deserved a much stronger role, too bad she isn't acting anymore. And it was a pity that Prakash Raj had an almost cameo role in the movie.

Monty is home!

2007-04-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

We picked up "Montster" a.k.a. Monty from PAWS Cat City earlier today. He's had an eventful last couple of days - he came in as a stray to PAWS a couple of days ago, and was neutered and brought to Cat City just this morning. He's a 2 year old flame point siamese, cute as a button! Guess he was on the street for a bit, he's got several battle scars - a cut in his ear, scratches on his nose and tail, but he's none the worse for the wear and seems incredibly mellow and friendly. Annie's welcomed him with a hiss and a spit, but they seem to be getting used to each other.

*yay*! Pupp has a new kitty pal!

Our first pic of Monty (sitting in his box on the way home from Cat City)

Pad Ke Mao ... with a twist :)

2007-04-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was craving for my favorite drunken noodles today. So, off I went to PCC to get the makings. But PCC let me down, they had no wide rice noodles. And they do not carry veggie fish sauce either (and no, I have *no* idea how a non-fish fish sauce is made :)). Very disappointing. Oh well, time to improvise. I decided to go ahead with wide egg noodles instead. And I used a red curry paste (*so* spicy!) in combination with soy sauce, vinegar and sweet'n'sour sauce, finally topping it off with some sriracha. Not authentic, nevertheless quite tasty!

Some essentials (however much I want to improvise):
* lime leaves are critical for the flavor
* Canola, peanut or sesame oils seem to work well with thai recipes, but none of the others quite cut it (olive is too weirdly flavorful, safflower is too flat, coconut is too overwhelming)
* Sweet basil adds the punch for Pad Ke Mao, can't quite do without it
* Egg noodles were ok this time around, but I'll never want to substitute my favorite sen yai with anything else again!

*yay*! Another culinary adventure :)

Aussies - unbeaten!

2007-04-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, Australia won (yet another) match in the Super 8 series - this time against England. Honestly, we thought it was going to be a much closer match. But the damn Aussies seem invincible! Ponting scored a solid 86 and Clarke stuck it out with 55*. I expected McGrath to be more of a force against England, but it was Shaun Tait whose mojo brought England down. Ponting's strategy was a stroke of genius - he delayed the final power play to the 27th over and soon the wickets came tumbling down!

Too bad that Pietersen's 104 didn't cut it for England. And I was a little disappointed that it was Roy who scored the 4 that clinched the match (typical flamboyance :) ) and not Clarke who was the steady bat all the way through.

P.S.: I have to agree with Bobbie: "Roy *so* looked like he had a hangover!" :)

Mmm ... sambar!

2007-04-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

Last night, Em got her first taste of sambar (of sorts). We were originally going to bake black cod in a garlic caper sauce, but by the time we got to Madison Market their seafood section was closed! *grr* So, we settled for comfort food (MY comfort food!): potato curry, sambar and rice. I had to improvise on the sambar since MM does not seem to carry tuvar dal, so we had to make do with channa dal and masoor dal instead. It wasn't bad at all, just took much longer to cook. Instead of the traditional vengaya sambar, we settled for onion+carrots instead. I could totally taste the shortcuts in our cooking (tamcon instead of the real soaked tamarind water and the lack of fresh ground sambar podi) but it turned out quite yummy. Can't wait to make my original sambar soon :)

We diced up some potatoes and sauteed them with a light dressing of olive oil, mustard, cumin, turmeric, cayenne and sea salt. The curry was happy, very happy.

*burp*

Go Sri Lanka!

2007-04-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

Caveat Emptor: This is a rant/post by a rabid cricket fan :)

So, I've been meaning to write about the Cricket World Cup and the debacle of sorts that it has been on several fronts:
India crashed out in the first round. The 1983 champions (That final is still one of my favorite matches!), the 2003 finalists could not quite make it to the second round! They lost their opening match to Sri Lanka, an extremely talented and passionate team, but a team they had beated in an ODI series just a month ago! Then they proceeded to win their only match against Bermuda - a first time qualifier in the ICC World Cup. The third match was a debacle - we lost to Bangadesh! A team comprising of some of the greatest cricketeers ever lost their crunch match to a handful of newbies - talented and inspired, but rookies nevertheless. I (and over 1 billion fellow Indians) watched in horror as our World Cup dreams were dashed. I've been talking about the World Cup for over a year now, even considering going to the caribbean to watch a game or 2. Guess I'm glad I wasn't there to watch this disaster.
And then there is the whole Bob Woolmer story. Considered one of the most talented coaches ever, he was murdered in Jamaica right after the Pakistani team (1992 champions) ignominiously crashed out of the tournament. There were rumors of cancelling the World Cup, the Pakistani team was held back for investigations for a couple of days, conspiracies theories seemed to fly out of everywhere, but the investigation is still ongoing.

It seemed too painful to write about cricket all along, but I finally have a new team to champion - Sri Lanka! The team that was (for too long) treated as the poor stepchild from the indian subcontinent has been playing some beautiful cricket. Though they lost the match against South Africa, it was a thriller to the end. Malinga's fabulous bowling almost won the match for them, even after the Sri Lankan batting lineup failed to impress! But the last match against England ... o.m.g. It was fabulous! A real nailbiter to the end. And Fernando bowling out Bopara was the perfect end to the match. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

P.S.: Malinga's hair *rocks*!

Sitka and Spruce - drool

2007-04-04T23:13:00.000-07:00

We hit Sitka & Spruce for their community dinner this last sunday. It was *divine*, truly divine. Foodie that I am, I still find it really hard to rank meals (I often revel too much in the moment of an amazing meal), but this meal has got to have been in my top 10 fabulous meals. *ever*

We started off with this plate of cheese and carpacchio, I got anchovies instead - no one told me that anchovies rocked! :)
The next course was ... a celeriac salad! No! I abhor celery (it should be banished from the face of this planet. Really.) But celeriac is celery root, not celery. And apparently, the plant below the soil surface is a lot more appetizing than the part above! The celeriac was sliced thin with tuna - quite yummy.
Then I had a plate of absolutely divine gnocchi with homemade ricotta, while others dined on some liver and beans (they left the liver for Matt's dog!) and apparently to-die-for ravioli with beef, etc.
The turnips and beets that came along were yummy, we ended up sharing it with the folks sitting next to us (Yay for community dining).
And then ... (drumroll please!) - came the most amazing piece of peppered halibut ever cooked. It was *yummy*!
We finished off with this lemon icecream drizzled with a fabulous chocolate sauce. Perfect, perfect end to our meal.

Yes, I *love* food!

Read this earlier today - *yay* for Matt and S&S!

COTR - quite happy!

2007-03-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

So, we hit the Children of the Revolution concert over the weekend at the Broadway Performance Hall. Seemed like a pretty odd venue for music that you start tapping your feet to, and end up shaking your booty to. Nevertheless, it was pretty fun. They performed several of their standards - Kalimera (love it! I remember hearing it in Greece a few years ago, was really exciting to "recognize" what seemed like a local song), Angels in Bolivia, Liberation, Jonathan ... The guest performer - Keiko had a really guttural (ala Gipsy Kings) voice - hearing this petite japanese woman with this baritone voice was quite a surprise! Encarna performed somed fabulous flamenco, Geoffrey was amazing, truly amazing! Like always, they ended with Eleftheria - it was quite amusing to see droves of folks from the audience climb onto the stage and start jumping around!

One thing we noticed (again) - we seem to enjoy COTR's non-english songs the most. And it seems like this has something to do with the lyrics. Most of their english songs seem to be almost halting and stilted, devoid of the flow that the spanish and greek songs seem to possess. Given how much energy and talent seems to live in this band, it would be pretty cool if they could come up with more captivating lyrics that we could comprehend.

Woo Hoo Hoo!

2007-03-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday was supposed to be the killer first double-digit run (10 miles). I wussed out and ran indoors (lame excuse: to save time!). But I compensated for that - I used a gradient and ... ran over 10.75 miles!!!

*happy*

Volterra - not bad

2007-03-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

So, we brunched at Volterra in Ballard this weekend. The location is awesome - in the heart of Ballard close to the farmers' market. A good-looking restaurant - pretty colors, an awesome skylight and a swanky bar. Now for the food: undecided! It took a second try to get our orders right (and yes, we were food bitches, we sent the first attempt right back!). And just as we were giving up on the place, the food that came out wasn't half bad! Which tempts me to give them another shot - maybe dinner next time.

Sitka and Spruce - yummy

2007-03-19T04:35:00.000-07:00

Sitka and Spruce is a gastronome's delight. It is kind of a dinky little space, but the food is to die for. Most plates come in small sizes which makes for a fine sampling menu. The carrot, beet and parsnip salad was tasty (quirkily garnished with olives!), the turnips with collard greens were delightful. The highlights of the dinner however were the chestnut crepes (stuffed with chevre and greens) and the white bean salad. *drool*

The restaurant hosts community dinners on sunday, can't wait to try that out!

P.S.: *yay*! My first restaurant posting :)

Bitter:Sweet - short but sweet, very sweet!

2007-03-19T04:06:00.000-07:00

Bitter:Sweet performed at the Triple Door last friday. And they were fantastic! Shana Halligan's sensuous voice and Kiran Shahani's haunting melodies made us happy! The accompaniments were great, but there was this one guy who was ostensibly scratching, but oh! so quietly that we could hear nothing of it :)

The Triple Door is a fabulous venue, but this kind of music begs for dancing room, so we're really hoping they hit the Showbox or Bumbershoot next time around. Also, the duo apparently performed all songs off their debut album (The Mating Game), but it seemed like they barely lasted 45 minutes. Time to release a new album!

Vision and the Brain

2007-03-12T01:30:00.000-07:00

This was a fun set of lectures! Part of the UW Psychology Lecture Series, the first talk by Dr.Murray focused on complexities of object perception in terms of size, brightness, etc. I loved how he started off his lecture with a couple of puzzles (similar to these) that demonstrated how deceptive visual perception can be. The latter part of his talk - about which parts of the brain ostensibly impact perception and interpretation as against just relaying electrical signals seemed to get a little muddier (not surprising given I'm less than a novice at this :)), but was still really interesting (http://faculty.washington.edu/somurray/research.html).

The second lecture by Dr.Goodale focused on how separate parts of the brain seem to be responsible for perceiving objects versus reacting to them. His subject of research was this woman who had sustained severe brain damage in the dorsal stream due to carbon monoxide poisoning - which affected her sense of perception, but left her capacity for controlled action (in response to visual impulses) intact! The latter is apparently controlled by the ventral stream, which in her case was unaffected. Her reactions were really intriguing - she was unable to recognize a pencil for what it is, but when the pencil was handed to her, she held out her palm in the correct position so as to be able to grab it. Her brain was able to receive the electrical signals corresponding to the image of the pencil, but she was not able to perceive what it was, though her brain was able to control her physical reaction to it. (http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/goodale/research/).

*sigh*. That probably doesn't sound very cogent!

Zodiac

2007-03-12T00:57:00.000-07:00

I *love* Mark Ruffalo! He rocked in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and in In the Cut. And he was my favorite part of Zodiac.

The movie was a tad bit too long, but pretty well paced. I really liked the fact that it seemed like a regular telling of a not completely solved mystery, not a souped-up drama revolving around some superstar detective. And it didn't focus on blood and gore (surprising for Fincher after Seven and Fight Club!), but more on how the series of random killings consumed the lives of these people trying to solve the mystery.

I liked it!

Planet India

2007-03-12T00:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, back after a hiatus - *too* much of work!

Last friday, Mira Kamdar was a guest speaker at the Elliott Bay Book Company - she was reading from her latest book Planet India. It was quite interesting, we went to the event expecting to see a whole slew of desis curious to hear more about everything that is hip about India, but we encountered a mostly non-indian crowd with just a smattering of desi faces. Mira's book seems to revolve around the premise that India, with its growing worldliness and booming economy can be a microcosmic representation of the world. I'm yet to read her book, but it was fascinating to hear her talk about her attempt to get a pulse on India's meteoric transformation in recent years.

Most desis are extremely conversant in english (courtesy of the British Raj) - this has definitely helped make India all the more attractive as an outsourcing destination. In response to Mira's positive comments about the ubiquity of the english language in India, an older gentleman commented about how he felt native languages were falling by the wayside and cultures were being eroded. This raises an interesting question - what is it that actually holds India together anyway? A secular country with 22 official languages, a zillion dialects and a smorgasbord of cultures, it often seems like the struggle to escape from colonization is what created this country. And if that is true, is there anything wrong in english being a strong aspect of that identity?

Socks and Shoes!

2007-03-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

Given how much I love being barefoot, it is no surprise that I'm totally intrigued by these socks. Though I have to wonder: What on earth made them come up with a name like "Micro Mini Socks"? Are they the tiniest of the short socks ever made? Why couldn't they just brand them toe-socks and call it good?

And speaking of toe-wear, these shoes (if we can call them that!) seem really cool. I've enjoyed barefoot running, but I'm just not close to sandy shores or soft trails where I can do it often. Maybe if I survive my marathon, I'll try these out.

Yay for Water!

2007-03-01T02:11:00.000-08:00

It is so exciting that the reincarnation of Deepa Mehta's Water has been getting the accolades it deserves!

It has been a long, hard road for Water. The film was initially shelved in 2000 after Hindu fundamentalists blocked filming and caused extensive damage to the sets of the movie with the Uttar Pradesh government pretty much watching the riots from the sidelines. This incident goes on India's wall of shame! Deepa is a fantastic director and the initial cast for Water included acting powerhouses Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das. But the original ensemble didn't persist when Deepa decided to remake the film 4 years later in Sri Lanka. The new cast includes Seema Biswas, Lisa Ray and John Abraham.

Water is an amazing movie - revolving around the centuries-old tradition in India of turning women into non-entities once their husbands die. Seeing the women with shaven heads, draped in white saris and walking around devoid of emotion evokes familiar images of a conservative India. And contrary to fundamentalist hindu opinion, this movie does not insult Mahatma Gandhi! Rather, it just portrays quite effectively why conservative India needed (and still needs) Gandhi's progressive thinking.

And Yay for Canada for sending Water to the Oscars!

10 days and counting!

2007-02-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

That's right! 10 more days to the start of the cricket World Cup. I am *so* excited! And Dada has been rockin', I can't wait to watch him play!

I really really wish I was going to watch the world cup, can't think of anything better than watching cricket AND bumming on the beach! But I'll be watching the matches and rooting for India and maybe we will see a repeat of our legendary win in 1983!

But I love garlic!

2007-02-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

And how often am I lucky enough to love something that is "really good for my body"? All these years, I thought every clove of minced, chopped and crushed garlic that I gladly consumed was *so* good for my heart. Apparently not. Yummy placebo? Yes. Cholesterol lowering miracle vegetable? No. Not at all!

http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/02/26/ap/headlines/d8nhn9j80.txt

Note: This blog is apparently on path to including random musings :)

Another Note: That link is unhappy. This techy article should be more enlightening:
http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/garlicsum.htm

Weee!!!

2007-02-26T09:49:00.000-08:00

3 miles this morning. I was so excited about running 2 days in a row that I woke up at 5:45 am!! I'll probably be fast asleep on my desk come 2 pm. :)

Yay for running!

2007-02-26T06:57:00.000-08:00

Time to start running again. And this time, I have a lofty ambition - a full marathon! That does seem like a stretch, especially given that I limped my way to the finish line at the NIke Women's 1/2! But it was such a blast! Thanks LisaBee! :)

So, the idea is to shoot for the San Diego Rock'n'Roll - that's a pretty aggressive schedule, but I'm giving myself till end of March to see if that is doable.

And on that note, yesterday was 6.5 miles. With Vodka. *so* much of fun!

I'm attempting to blog?

2007-02-26T06:39:00.000-08:00

Apparently, I've been harboring aspirations to become one of those (bloggers)! And yet, I doubt that I have engrossing enough thoughts to spill onto a blog. But I do have a big excuse for starting to scribble - this way I can keep track of all the things I want to do this year (especially my running calendar!). And maybe along the way, I will have something half interesting to say!

Hmm ... I'm liking this already, I'm writing. I haven't done that in a long time.