Okay, so it’s been a month since Rachel visited, and I still haven’t finished posting this stupid entry. It’s a combination of a couple of things. First, it’s been a really fast month for some reason. I don’t feel like I’ve done THAT much, but it went by in a flash. Second, I tend to overthink entries about Rachel visits. A bunch of rambling sentences does not capture the fun, silliness, excitement, or delirious joy I have whenever I see Rachel. Being able to write as well as Rachel would help, because her entry does capture some of that. Third, I just suck about updating my blog lately. So here’s the shortened version of the visit, before it never ever gets posted.

The theme of the cooking weekend was Japanese, so we made a ton of yummy dishes. Somen noodles over ice with a dipping sauce. Ginger-stewed eggplant. Green beans with a miso dressing. Glazed carrots and gobo. The Soup of Ancient Mystery (so named because I lost the bookmark for where I found it, thus leaving it nameless). Sweet simmered vegetables. Broccoli with salted lemon wedges. Mochi, which is considered by some historians to be one of the tastiest kitchen disasters of the 21st century. And, of course, sushi.

In addition to the eating we did at my apartment, we also did some eating out. We had breakfast at Country Gourmet the first morning, then the next morning we went to Hobee’s. The original plan was to alternate between the two, but after Rachel proposed marriage to the tea, we ended up eating at Hobee’s two more times. We also ate at Spice Islands Cafe, which is always yummy. Though it does not rival Hobee’s tea. Ask Rachel, she’ll tell you.

Oh yeah, and we did that “skydiving” thing. We went to Skydive Monterey Bay, so the view was gooooooooooooorgeous. Not that it wasn’t totally fun when we jumped in Wisconsin, but to have the view of the ocean made it that much more fantastic. I think Allison is going with us next time we jump. Unless you’re a member of Allison’s family, in which case: Of course she would never think about doing something so dangerous as to skydive. What kind of fool do you take her for?!

Other random things we did:

• Walking all over Mountain View to shop for food and supplies.
• Watching Veronica Mars on my laptop while lying in my hammock, then looking for flying motorcycles (you can tell them from planes if you look carefully).
• Discussing the workings of the Time Police, in their Chinese food containers controlled by chopsticks, wearing their little mushroom helmets.
• Sleeping through movies that we intended to watch.
• Giggling through sleep we intended to get.
• Visiting our friends at the Scientology Center.

Again, this doesn’t come close to capturing the high level of awesomeitude of the visit (and I’m sure there are dozens of things I’m forgetting), but at least this gets it posted on my blog before I leave for North Carolina.

Pictures!!

Butch Walker’s new album was just on the front page of MySpace when I logged in. Every so often, I find out that things I like are considered cool, so it’s like I’m accidentally hip. Then I go back to being uncool again, as things should be.

So I’m sitting on my couch surrounded by piles of boxes and packing material, but my stuff and I are officially moved into my new place. It’s still a bit surreal, since the time between starting to look, finding the place, signing the lease, and moving was so quick after so many weeks of prepping to look at apartments. But still, I’m very happy with the place.

I’ve been sick this week, which has not helped anything. I came home from work on Wednesday because I was feeling awful, and spent the afternoon curled up in bed. Allison brought me frozen yogurt to try to make me feel better. On Thursday morning, I was feeling better, but not well enough to go in, so I worked from home all day. I think being sick and not resting turned out to be a stupid plan, because by the end of the day I had a fever of 101 and was lying in bed shivering. Again, Allison saved the day by going to the store and getting me juice and sorbet, and then bringing me things as I needed them. I see now why she is so valuable to the Stanford psych department. She must bring them juice too. On Friday, I spent the day resting. I made it through the movie, but I still feel a little under the weather.

The move itself went quickly. Budget ended up moving my truck rental to Foster City, which was a bit of a drag since it added an extra few minutes of driving on each side. My uncle volunteered to drive the truck, so he, Blake and I went down there around 8, except that none of the employees that had the power to rent vehicles were there, despite the place opening at 7. When they finally arrived and it was my turn, they told me they didn’t have a 10′ truck for me, and instead rented us a 24′ truck at the 10′ price. One on hand, it was really nice to have the extra room. On the other hand, it would have been nice to not take out so many tree branches in the process. Since we had a ridiculous amount of room in the truck compared to the amount of stuff I had, we didn’t have to stack any boxes, which eliminated the need to keep things from tipping during the move. One unfortunate casualty was my desk, which probably got weakened from sitting in the garage. (Because of that, I avoided unpacking my office stuff, not knowing if I’m going to use a table that I have as a desk, or if I’m going to go buy a new one. But I’ve unpacking my most important things, so I can watch TiVo and get online. Oh yeah, and my sheets were moderately important too, I suppose.) All in all, the main move went pretty quickly. We got everything from the moving truck into my apartment without issue, and then got the truck back before our 2pm deadline. Because I’d hassled the guy about being late, he knocked $10 off the truck rental price, which was pretty awesome. In the afternoon, I loaded my more fragile items (computers, TV, etc) into my mom’s van and brought another load down. I managed to keep everything moderately organized, so there hasn’t been too much stacking and restacking of boxes.

And it must be said that Rachel R. O. C. K. S. Because of her labeling when we packed up my things in September, everything was super organized and labeled. When I remembered I needed my alarm clock at 12:30 this morning, I was able to go right to the box that contained it.

And speaking of rocking, Butch Walker is playing in San Francisco in September in support of his upcoming album “The Rise and Fall of… Butch Walker and The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites” which is now available for pre-order. I’m so very excited.

I’m moving this weekend. Well, I’m moving this weekend if I remember to find a truck to move the furniture in. (Yes, kids, this is what maturity and planning looks like!) Last week, it seemed so far away, but this week I realize how freakin’ much I have left to do.

Done so far:

• Bought dishes
• Ordered cookware
• Ordered knives

Still to do:

• Finish packing
• Buy silverware & glasses
• Reserve a truck
• Find a kitchen table
• …too many things to list without feeling stressed

Despite flipping out at the to do list, it’s good. I’ll have all the time Allison in out of time is out of town (note to self: don’t write updates when you’re so tired that you can’t see straight) to get settled without her tricking me into spending time with her instead of getting things done. She’s sneaky like that.

In other news, Rachel is coming to visit for the 4th of July weekend! We’re planning to do another cooking weekend, which is going to rock. Sushi is a definite, and the rest is TBD. Probably an Asian theme though. I’m sure you’ll read allllll about it. In order to counter the weight I’ll gain from eating, Blake and I are going to run to the Wharf to Wharf race in July. Which I suppose means I should consider exercising between now and then. Yeah, right! This race is shorter than Bay to Breakers, and I obviously didn’t need to train for THAT. …this is a bad precedent.

I officially survived Bay to Breakers on Sunday. Despite inconsistent training for the last few weeks and some unhealthy eating, I managed to finish the race with a start line to finish line time of 1:19:43. Blake and I got a late start, so my gun time was higher, but that’s not the point. The point is that I ran 7.48 miles in less than 80 minutes (including the time it took to dodge the walking costumed people we were stuck behind, which slowed down our pace). Thats 2 miles further than I’ve ever run before (see, I told you I wasn’t training hard enough). Blake was also nice enough to offer me a water bottle from his trunk, though we noticed it had expired in 1998, thus making the water about 10 years old. Despite this, I am still looking at running a 6 mile race with him this summer, and possible entering another 5k. I’m not sure that I want to be on an intense exercise routine, but I do want to lose this last bit of weight and planning races will keep me motivated to run.

Some general event photos and the photos of me that I am too cheap to purchase.

Today, we had an off-site at City Beach for our engineering organization. We did some team-building exercises that I wasn’t too thrilled with, but afterward, we got to do whatever we wanted. I ended up playing basketball for 2 1/2 hours, which has made my feet incredibly angry with me. Actually, I was really surprised how well I held up, considering that I expected to be pretty sore today because it’s two days after that crazy run.

Now I’m going to collapse on the couch.

It has been a poetry-filled few weeks. A couple of weeks, Allison wrote me a poem, which I was going to annotate, but really, isn’t it more fun without context?

There once was a young man named Bryce
Who I think is wonderfully nice
He doesn’t mind puns
We have lots of fun
We have our own “thing” that’s precise.

Oddly, I have a chimp head
You want to do nothing instead
You give it a hit
Then don’t want to exit
“I love MR. GO-RILLA!” you said.

Then this weekend, Allison was writing a Mother’s Day poem for her mom, and said I could help. I felt her poem about “love” was silly. Instead, I decided to help her mom make peace with some low points in her life. Of course, my work was in the most heart-felt poetry form, the haiku.

First, I resolved her negative view of Peter Tork. When she went to a Monkees concert, some girl broke Peter’s beaded necklace, which caused him to curse, which apparently caused deep psychological damage.

Like snowflakes, beads fall
Peter Tork says a bad word
Peter is sorry

Feeling I was on a roll, I then started moving onto other problems. When she was a child, her closet was in her sister’s room, and her sister would not allow her to come in.

Closet off-limits
Forbidden like Eden’s fruit
Christine is sorry

I thought best to apologize for a more current problem.

No child left behind
Except for millions who are
George Bush is sorry

Lastly, there was one more apology in order.

Horrible poems
Pain burns like a thousand suns
I, Bryce, am sorry

After her mom received the poems, she thanked me for the cathartic words, and asked for a verse about the Mother’s Day where Allison made her cry when she and a friend killed her tomato plants, then made a huge mess.

Tomatoes destroyed
Harvested in youthful sin
Krista is sorry.

Dish soap and ashes
Make dresses black like midnight
Al is sorry, too.

I’m on a roll.

A 13-year-old was killed on Tuesday, which is the 7th Caltrain death so far this year (3 suicides, 4 accidents). I found an article on SFGate discussing the different ways other train systems prevent deaths on their tracks. Fencing does not seem like a viable options, and I wonder how much an enforcement program would really prevent this. One thing the article did not mention was the death statistics for the other railroads mentioned or any sort of national statistics. I found a PDF of stats for 2004 on the Federal Railroad Administration site, but can’t tell how out of line (if at all) the Caltrain data is with this.

Sean was in town today, so I spent the day with he, Chris, and Jua (plus a smattering of Jeff, Kevin, and Andrea throughout) doing various wandering throughout the mall, playing video games, seeing a movie (Thank You For Smoking, which I found to be quite hilarious), and eating. While at the mall, we ended up at Suncoast, which was having a going out of business sale where the sign said “Everything Must Go!”, and all the items were at least 50% off the marked price. Based on normal prices, this meant things were about the same price at Best Buy. (For example, the John Mayer Trio album was marked as being $20. Do people really pay $20 for a CD? No wonder they’re going out of business!) I picked up two concert DVDs (Big Head Todd & the Monsters - Live at the Fillmore and Elvis Costello and the Imposters - Club Date - Live in Memphis) for twelve and ten bucks, respectively. To put in perspective how good this “sale” is, I saved about $3 (total!) off what I would have paid at Amazon. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. When they said everything, they meant everything. They were selling the vacuum, file cabinets, the security gates, the DVD racks, the minifridge from the back office. I’ve never seen “everything” taken so literally.

In an unrelated note, I have become a huge Butch Walker fan in the past month or so. Right now, I have a YME playlist of Butch Walker and Marvelous 3 songs on endless repeat. I know I’m a bit late jumping on the bandwagon, but better late than never, right? I find some of his lyrics to be just amazingly perfect. My favorite of the moment is “Take Tomorrow (One Day At A Time)” which is very much in line with my outlook of late.

So give me all your fear, throw it all away.
Think about the good things, no matter what they say.
We’ll take tomorrow baby, yeah,
One day at a time.

His cover of “Since U Been Gone” is also quite fabulous.

The 2nd of 4 (much-delayed) blog postings about my trip to Minnesota

On Saturday, we went to get my tattoo. It was (is?) something I had put a lot of thought into. The past 12 months have been so full of change and growth, it feels to me like this year will be one I look back upon as a turning point. It’s been a year of ups and downs, and many of them unexpected. I felt the tattoo would be a way to capture this moment in time. Glen Phillips’s “Winter Pays For Summer” album deals with the theme of taking life as it comes. The title (and tattoo) comes from the lyric “One way or another / Winter pays for the summer / You won’t get what you wanted / But what you got will be good” There are many lyrics on that album (and on others) that I considered for the tattoo, but after much deliberation, this is the one that made the most sense. When we got to Ink Lab, Rachel and I looked through their folder for text styles, but they didn’t have anything like what I had pictured (a Celtic-looking font). The artist was able to trace the text from a Celtic art book to get the lettering for my tattoo (which is why the “w” is actualyl an upside down “m”), and it looked just how I had hoped. Actually getting the tattoo hurt, but Rachel kept me distracted by encouraging me ramble to keep my mind off of the pain, and it ended up going quite quickly. Afterwards, it stung a bit, but it was nowhere near as annoying as I had expected, especially since I think I ended up sleeping on it the first night. Never did I regret it, so that’s a great sign.

Saturday morning also included a trip to the Indian grocery store. We got there a few minutes before it opened, so we passed the time by stopping into The Axman to look at all the stuff they had in there. It was the weirdest collection of various bits and pieces of electronics, metal, rubber, and plastic, as well as a bunch of other random things. It was best summed up by the father who, after being told by his son to hurry up, said “This is The Axman. I have to explore!” Once we finished our own exploring, we took our own exploring, we went back to the Indian grocery and started finding our ingredients. Perhaps because we were the only two customers or maybe because we were two white people studying each package, the store employee came over and took our shopping list and quickly grabbed each of the things we needed. Although his help did speed up the process, I was disappointed that we didn’t get a chance to just wander and look at all the different things the store had to offer as we searched for the things from our list.

In the afternoon, we went to see Capote. I love watching Philip Seymour Hoffman just become a character in a film. Unlike someone like Kevin Costner who is, in my mind, always just Kevin Costner playing a part (Kevin Costner building a baseball field in Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner doing a silly accent in Thirteen Days, Kevin Costner boring the audience to tears in The Postman), Hoffman truly becomes the character. His performance was wonderful. Also, not knowing much about Truman Capote’s life, I thought the story was told in a way that clued me into the important details without going through a large amount of expositional jabbering in the first five minutes of the film. The information just seeped in as the film progressed. It also made me understood all those jokes from Family Guy. (And Hoffman just won Best Actor as I was typing this, so the Academy agres with me.)

For our first meal, we decided to make:

• Paruppu Undhai Sambhar (Lentil Dumplings in Tamarind Sauce)
• Aloo Chole (Chickpeas with Garlic and Ginger)
• Naan

According to Rachel’s research, naan is not traditionally made in Indian homes because it is usually cooked in a tandoori oven (which most homes don’t have). We found a recipe that said it could be done in the broiler, so we decided to give it a shot. It came out surprisingly well. We got a little nervous about burning it, so we erred on the side of undercooking it slightly, but it was delicious. One downside of using the broiler was that it didn’t have the same smoky flavor as it does in a tandoori oven. All things considered, it was a success.

The Paruppu Undhai Sambhar, on the other hand, was a little shaky. First, it did its best to try to kill Rachel. While pouring the water into the pan containing the spices, she caught a lung-full of steam and was just barely able to cough out “Don’t breathe in!” to keep me from doing the same (although even from my position in the kitchen, I ended up in a coughing fit from the burning in my throat). And as if that weren’t enough, when we reached the point where you put the dumplings in the sauce and cook them, they sort of… disappeared. We trace the problem to not making the dough smooth enough (the picture in the cookbook looked chunky, so we thought it was good enough, but obviously wasn’t), not frying the dough long enough, as well as forming the dough into dumplings and letting them sit in the open air for too long before cooking them, which may have dried them out. So we were left with a gritty-textured lentil soup, which was not pleasant to eat. After dinner, we tried to save it by making it into a stew, which also didn’t work. We eventually stumbled onto the idea of putting it over rice, which would hide the weird texture but wouldn’t affect the flavor. We did that for lunch the next day and it was tasty, so after much effort, our lentil chutney was also a hit.

The third dish, Aloo Chole, was my favorite of the weekend. The sweetness of the tomato combined with the Indian spices was absolutely delicious. Part of what made it so tasty to me was that it was so unlike any dish I normally eat, so my taste buds were challenged to understand the flavors of the dish. I wish I was about to describe it in a way that could do the flavors justice.

More photos

The recipes

Naan

(Coming soon!)

Lentil Dumplings in Tamarind Sauce - Paruppu Undhai Sambhar

8 servings

Dumplings:
1 cup dried split and hulled pigeon peas (toovar dal), sorted, rinsed
and drained
1 T dried yellow split peas (chana dal), sorted, rinsed and drained
3 cups warm water
2 or 3 dried red Thai, serrano or cayenne chilies
1 T chopped gingerroot
12 to 15 fresh karhi leaves, coarsely chopped (1 T), or 2 T chopped
fresh cilantro
2 T rice flour or cake flour
1 t salt
1/4 t asafetida (hing) or garlic powder
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Sauce:
1 T tamarind concentrate paste
6 cups warm water
1 T vegetable oil
1 t black or yellow mustard seed
1 T dried yellow split peas (chana dal)
1 t fenugreek seed (methi)
12 to 15 fresh karhi leaves or 2 dried bay leaves
2 t Sambhar Powder*
1/2 t asafetida (hing) or garlic powder
1 t salt
1/2 t ground turmeric
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

*Sambhar Powder ingredients:
1/2 c dried red Thai, serrano or cayenne chilies
2 T dried yellow split peas (chana dal), sorted
2 T dried split and hulled black lentils (urad dal) or yellow split peas,
sorted
1 T coriander seed
1 t black peppercorns
1 t fenugreek seed
1 t vegetable oil

(Sorry, missing the directions for this) Basically, for the dumplings you soak the stuff, process it together, fry the dough, and make it into balls. Then you do the sauce and stir the dumplings into it. Then the dumplings disappear. Then you try to make it into stew. Then you serve it over rice.

Per serving: 130 calories; 8g fat; 4g dietary fiber; 5g protein.

Chickpeas with Garlic and Ginger - Aloo Chole

6 servings

6 oz chickpeas
1/4 t baking soda
4 medium boiling potatoes
10 garlic cloves
two 1-inch cubes fresh ginger
3 medium tomatoes
5 T vegetable oil
pinch of ground asafetida
1/2 t ground turmeric
salt
1/4 to 1/2 t cayenne pepper
2 T lemon juice

1. Put the chickpeas in a bowl, add the baking soda, and pour on 4 cups cold water. Leave to soak overnight.
2. The following day, transfer the chickpeas and any remaining liquid to a large pan or cookingpot. Add 2 1/2 cups water. Bring to a boil and skim off any froth from the surface. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer gently for about 1 hour or until the chickpeas are tender. Turn off the heat.
3. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and cutinto quarters; set aside.
4. Peel and chop the garlic and ginger. Put the garlic, ginger, and tomatoes in a blender with 2 tablespoons water and blend to a smooth paste.
5. Drain the cooked chickpeas, reserving 1 1/4 cups of the liquid.
6. Heat the oil in a large frying pan or flameproof casserole over medium heat, then add the asafetida. As soon as it sizzles and expands, after a few seconds, add the paste fromt eh blender, keeping your face averted, and sprinkle in the turmeric. Fry, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes.
7. Pour in the reserved 1 1/4 cups liquid and putin teh chickpeas and potatoes. Add 1 teaspoon salt, black pepper, and cayenne to taste, and the lemon juice. Bring to a boil, cover, lower the heat, and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Check the seasoning before serving.

The 1st of 4 (much-delayed) blog postings about my trip to Minnesota

The trip started out with a delayed flight, which is always a good sign. I had my Sudoku and Freakanomics to keep me company, so it was tolerable. I also was sitting next to a sleazy salesman, so I got to listen while he called a customer, then immediately called his boss to clue him into the lies the customer had been told (mostly around having things like “a standard contract” and “other customers”).

The delays coupled a brief layover in Denver left me completely disoriented about what time it was. Since I was late, we aborted the plan to go to Ink Lab to look at tattoo designs, and instead went right to Punch Neapolitan for dinner. I almost died walking to the car because I estimated it to be about 15 degrees Kelvin. After dinner, we headed back to Rachel’s apartment, which is so neat. Hardwood floors, with enough space to move around, but not so much that it feels open and empty. It’s the sort of place I’d like to find in my upcoming search. We went through cookbooks and finalized our daily menus, then rounded out the shopping list Rachel had started in preparation for the first day of cooking.