More Fun Food Experiments!

Is it wrong of me to ask Sarah last night, "Honey, do you mind if I get another jar of some fermenting fruit or vegetable going in the fridge?"

Well, I figured that I needed to ask her because the bottom shelf of the fridge - normally reserved for a wide selection of beer bottles - is slowly turning into my own little Science Channel. First it was the preserved lemons, which were killer, if I do say so myself. Then it was the pickled eggs and beets. Then, it was the lard (see below). And there's the occasional fermenting dough. Now, I'm on to olives.

I've wanted to try my hand at curing olives for quite some time now, and about a year or so ago I looked into it and discovered that it either required lye and a long time, or just a long time. I don't think I have a long time for anything, since my attention span is relatively short. Olives, so the recipes say, require months. I ain't got months, especially when the olive bar at Mollie Stones is only $5.99/lb.

Anyway, I saw some fresh olives at the farmer's market a few months ago and decided to give it a try. As you can see in the photo (taken one week into the experiment), I decided to try two different methods: the brine method and the water method. Both methods require you to individually "crack" each olive as the first step. Sarah laughed a lot while I was doing that...

I started these bottles on October 18, 2008. Remember that date...

For the brine method (Jar A, on the left), you soak the raw olives in a salt water mixture that has to be changed every week for two weeks, and then every month for "two or more months" (more on that last bit later...). You can see that the olives are very bright and green.

For the water method (Jar B, on the right), you soak the olives in plain tap water (maybe I should have used filtered, non-chlorinated, non-fluoride water?). The kicker here is that the water must be changed EVERY DAY for a month or more, "or bacteria may build up!" That's nice. I'm sure that just guaranteed that Sarah will be eating none of the B olives. And, of course, I've forgotten several days already so if they suck, that (and the fluoride thing) is my excuse.

Jar B olives quickly turned a splotchy brown, and now a few weeks after the photo above they are all solidly brownish while Jar A olives are still a vibrant green. I'm thinking of brining myself to see if I stay vibrant as well.

I've read/heard that raw olives are extremely bitter. I should have tried one to taste for myself, but I forgot. However, I'm now thinking that that may have been a critical error because now I won't be able to determine how much "better" they get over time. Ahhh, time. I remember some good quotes about time: "Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day," from Pink Floyd. "That's all it takes really, pressure, and time. Like I said, in prison a man will do anything to keep his mind occupied," from Shawshank Redemption. I guess those two sum up my food experiments - most food is dull and I'm in a metaphorical prison of blandness.

Anyway, I was talking about time. It takes about 13 minutes - round trip - to go to the grocery store, load up on really good olives, and get back home. Maybe 18 minutes if there is traffic. And what does that cost? Maybe $6 for the olives and a buck for gas. But let's not focus on the cost, because anything worth tasting is worth paying for, or something like that. Let's focus on time.

As I mentioned, this all began on October 18, 2008. Jar A requires 2-1/2 to 3 months, minimum. Jar B requires at least one month plus...who knows how long because the recipe is open ended, and not in a good way. As I mentioned my lack of tasting the raw olives as a critical error, that comes into play here. Why? Because here is how you know when the olives are "done:"

• Jar A: "You can now eat these olives if you like fairly-bitter olives."
• Jar B: "Just keep waiting until the olives don't taste bitter any longer."

Sometimes, even I laugh at my misguided attempts to mimic some food item that is so readily available, so inexpensive, and already so good as-is. However, I guess I do get a little satisfaction out of saying, "I made this." Or, "I made this...and it sucks and I wasted hours and hours and burned my hand and cut my finger and am now so disappointed that my whole dinner/evening is ruined." Yeah, I'm a pleasure to be around.

Anyway, as you have probably already done the math in your head, October 18 + 2-1/2 months is roughly New Year's Day...2009. Add on a few more weeks for bitterness abatement, and we're getting mighty close to not having any snacks at the Super Bowl Party!

Stay tuned...I'll keep you posted.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: the lard. Lard is good food. I recently read an article on lard and how it's not really that bad for you and how it gets a bad rap, so I decided to give it a go. Plus, when Sarah treated me to a pie and tart baking class a few years ago, everyone said how lard makes such a better pie crust.

So, since it was pumpkin season, I decided to make a pumpkin pie with real pumpkin and a lard-filled crust. Doesn't it look yummy?

If I do say so myself, the crust ROCKED! It had a flavor that held it's own and was extremely flaky - as a good pie crust should be.

As for the pie, well, let's just say that the pumpkin sat in our kitchen for about three weeks before the pie was made, and that I forgot to put sugar into the pie, so it was a bit "rustic," or "savory" as Sarah put it. I guess that's why I ate one piece, the pie eventually got moldy, and I threw the whole thing away.

And as I was throwing the moldy, stinky, four-hours-to-prepare pie in the garbage can, all I muttered was, "I made this...and it sucks and I wasted hours and hours and burned my hand and cut my finger and am now so disappointed that my whole dinner/evening is ruined."

I love to cook!

While Sarah was having mimosas with the girls...

I had to make myself scarce the other weekend while Sarah did something as if her and her friend's names were Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda. So, I grabbed my kayak, my fly rod, and my manly 4x4 and headed into the Sierras to camp, fish, and see if I could find a situation where I was actually forced by loss-of-traction to put our Pathfinder into 4x4 mode (as opposed to "just locking it in because we paid for it and I know that this dirt patch on the side of the road doesn't really require four-wheel drive, but I want to try it out so bad that I need any excuse to crank that knob and feel like a man").

I wound my way up to Lindsey Lake (see map below), found a nice camping spot right on the shoreline, and whipped out the fly rod. Two native trout later, and I hit the sack for a restful night of peace and quiet.


View Larger Map

The next morning, I was out on the lake for a crack-of-dawn kayak, and another fish or two on the fly rod. Then, off to check out the back roads and forest trails of Tahoe National Forest. And that's where the beautiful day turned a bit dreary...

As I drove along the dirt roads, I heard a hiss and lo and behold, got a flat tire.

Bummer.

Oh well, what's a better way to feel manly? That's right: working on the ol' automobile! Getting some grease under my fingernails!

Or, in this case, getting dust and dirt under my fingernails, because there hadn't been any rain in something like 200 days.

Anyway, I dropped the spare, jacked the truck, and in less than 45 minutes, I was back on the road with only a mismatched rim to show for it.

Here are a few more photos, including some of Malakoff Diggins State Park, where the gold rush dudes used huge water hoses to blast away the mountains looking for gold. I don't think the EPA would approve of that these days.

Finally - a weekend away from metrosexual SF and up into the mountains to reclaim some of my Western PA man cred.

Mission accomplished!

Whales in Pacifica!

Very rarely have I found exercise as rewarding as I did tonight. No, I haven't lost inches or pounds. Instead, I was completely entertained and distracted during my workout (yippeee!). As I was stretching at the foot of the Pacifica pier, I was staring out at the ocean noticing the volume of water at high tide, the choppy waves and the seemingly-oversized sun. Then, I saw a large puff of water really close to shore. I thought I was seeing things and just chalked it up to seaspray and my poor vision. But then it happened again and suddenly I got a peek of the back of a whale.

I ended up running along the beach and climbing up Mori Point for a better view as the whales traveled south. As I walked back North to the pier, the whales must've made a U-turn because all of a sudden there they were again, this time treating their audience to fins raised up in the air, breaches, and tail slaps. My 30 minute run turned into a 1.5 hour whale-watching excursion. The entire time I kept thinking to myself (and even said to several people I ended up talking to along the pier): Jason is NEVER going to believe me. In three years living in Pacifica we've seen dolphin once or twice and that's about it. We have the worst luck! And the one night I go running without him, this happens. His reaction to my story? "I don't believe you! You are totally making this up!"

Amidst all my excitement I couldn't help but think about the stories I've been reading lately about all the plastic floating around in our Oceans and how it ends up in the stomachs of sea life (and eventually back into our food supply). I found reading this paper very helpful in understanding what is going on and why it's such an issue. Hope you find it interesting, too.

Now, back to my Flickr search for whales at the Pacifica pier since of course I didn't have a camera with me for my Monday night run!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

When people talk about new things happening in their life, lots of familiar sayings tend to pop into your head (i.e., "change is good," "maybe a change of scenery will do the trick," "people are afraid of change," etc.) In my world, change is a pretty common thing - in fact, anything routine is more of an oddity. My world is in constant motion. It's just the way I live - I've become accustomed to it, and I kind of like it that way!

So over the last eight years while I was working with/for HP, I had so many jobs within that company that I can barely remember them all. It's a big place filled with really fantastic people and between the constant opportunities to change my "beat" and the relationships I had built with so many of my co-workers, there was no real reason to leave. Until about a month ago. It's like a lot of stories you hear ... "I wasn't looking, they found me!" ... and long story short, I accepted a position on the communications team at Omidyar Network. You can read all about the organization on the web, but the short story is that this place is doing some really good things in the world, and I get to be a part of it. It was an opportunity that just felt so right I couldn't ignore it. So there you go - a big change for me personally and professionally and so far, so good.

Part of the benefit of getting this new job is that our guest room no longer has to serve as my office! Instead of working in my PJ's all day, I'm now commuting down to Redwood City (a big shock to the budget given the state of gas prices these days!). So while Jason will tell you that he's sick of me "re-doing" everything in that room, the truth is that it was never "done" in the first place. It was the leftover room - all the boxes from our last move that we didn't know what to do with (or ever bothered to unpack after three years) had been shoved in the closet and the place had just become a dumping ground.








So with a little paint, Jason's handy electrical skills, a lot of late-night online shopping, and a talented seamtress that I found on craigslist, we now have a new and improved guest room. My inspiration started with a black and white Ansel Adams print of a New Mexico graveyard at night (the first gift Jason ever gave me) ... and extended all the way through some art deco influences and finally ended with the shell prints that I made using oyster shells from Bora Bora.

I'm now starting to "re-do" the master bedroom but here again... it was never really done in the first place. More on that in a few months when we get all of that figured out. Part of our problem is that we're both incredibly picky (stop laughing Mom, I can hear you despite the 3,000 miles between us). More often than I'd like (and in order to get what we really, very specifically want) I usually just end up figuring it out on my own. Anyone ever made their own headboard? If so, drop me a line!

The other big improvement in our house is our new fireplace... through my near-obsession with Domino magazine, I found a great place in Sausalito that makes their own incredibly gorgeous tile. Luckily, they have a "secret backroom" where this (did I mention completely out of our price range) same tile sells at a huge discount. After two visits and sifting through more dirty boxes than a person with allergies should be legally allowed to handle, we emerged victorious. We put together a pattern and Jason tiled the whole thing by himself. Now, I know it sounds like "voila! we have a new fireplace" but trust me it didn't go that quickly! It did turn out really, really well and considering Jason's never done any tiling before, I'm pretty amazed with the results.

Other than that, we're waiting on some wall art from Blik for our downstairs bathroom, which has experienced a few small changes too. Honestly, no room is safe in this house! After three years, you just need to shake things up a bit... which Jason just calls "changing her mind a lot."

Anyway, I hope that next time you visit our house you agree that change is good! :-)

Kewl tech, or just a highlight of my poor stock picking?

I'm always on the lookout for some cool new technology, usefulness be damned! So, when I read about wikinvest, I just had to try it out. Wikinvest is a wiki for investing (clever name...), and they also offer embeddable, interactive stock charts. But, which stock should I choose?

Well, I could choose something interesting and topical, like Starbucks or Google or Apple, or I could choose one of my recent stock picks. Well, given my stock-picking prowess these past few months, this isn't a shining example of my intelligence. But, remember, this is for testing the wikinvest chart! This is not to spark commentary from anyone, especially Sarah, on my investment choices.

Every stock has a bad day or two...or three...or 207....





Go ahead and play around with the chart. Oh, and do you see that little spike around the beginning of June? Yeah, of course that's when I bought in...at $54...

Move your mouse along the line and see the daily prices. Change the time scale. Or, click on the little letters, which correspond to news. And, since it's a cool wiki, you can even add your own news. Click on the "B" at the beginning of June and see what it says!

Please, keep your comments to yourself! ;-)

Art?

Sarah and I were in New York City in June for our First Anniversary trip. (I'm calling it our "First Anniversary trip" because we hope to take a trip every anniversary! I tried to tie it to the accepted anniversary year gift, with first being paper and us taking a trip to a local paper mill, but that received a less-than-enthusiastic response from the trip committee...)

Anyway, it was like a million degrees outside that weekend, so we decided to seek out some air conditioning. We headed to The Met so that we could check out the new exhibit on superheroes, but then also took a lap around the rest of the joint. (Oh, and by "lap," I really mean that we trudged around in confusing circles, map in hand, with absolutely no idea of how the sucky map correlated to the actual building in which we were walking. If we would have been told afterward that the map we were given was actually a map for the corn maze at Half Moon Bay, I would have believed it!)

While in one of many confusing corridors, we stumbled upon one of the best examples of post-modern art that we've seen in quite a while. Or, post-modern lunch, I should say. This guy, Jasper Johns, obviously had nothing better to do in the year of my birth than create a realistic rendering of a slice of white bread from sheet-lead relief and embossed rag paper (whatever that is). Now, I'm sure that this piece voices some commentary on the artist's upbringing during the depression, when food was scarce, juxtaposed against the late-sixties modernization of the nuclear family's standardized diet, mixed in with a statement on the homogenization of American culture and the blandness of simple white bread.

But I digress. What I see is a perfectly rendered slice of white bread. If only the exhibit next to it was focused on peanut butter and jelly... Now there's art!

Oh, and just as a disclaimer, I "purchased" these photos from the gift shop. I did not ignore the constant "no pictures please" chants from the security guards and sneak this photo on my phone while pretending to be making a call. No I did not.

Blogging for blogging's sake...

Yeesh, we haven't had a blog posting in quite a while. That's so lame.

Maybe I should write something.

Something

Maybe I should post a new photo?

How about integrate the latest YouTube video that I like?

Stay thirsty my friends!

A short trip to... Belize!

Sarah's friends Amy and Alan, who are now my friends, since CA law states that 50% of everything Sarah has is mine, or does that mean just one of them is my friend...? Which one would I choose? Wait a minute... What was I talking about? Oh yeah, BELIZE!

Amy and Alan own a beach bungalow in Belize, which is called the Barefoot Beach Bungalow. So, it's the Belizian Barefoot Beach Bungalow, on the beach, in Belize, below the trees, in the breeze... Ugh. Too many b's. Yeesh, I've had too much diet Sunkist today.

Sarah thinks that I have ADHD. What do you think? Should I wear black socks today or gray? I wonder how many nails are in that fence out there.

OK - what was I talking about? Oh yeah, BELIZE!

A few weeks ago, when we hung with Amy and Alan in Paso Robles, Alan mentioned that he was heading to Belize to do some maintenance on their beach house. Sarah's been there once, and she always talks about how nice it is. Amy and Alan talk about it a lot, too. But, poor little old me ain't never been there. Nope. Never an invitation. Never even a postcard. Hmph! So, what did I do? I invited myself along with Alan!

Oh what fun! Two manly-men tearing termite-infested wood off of his bungalow in 100-degree heat and the accompanying tropical humidity, dodging tarantulas and herds of iguanas, and hauling in barracuda for lunch! Nothing like an adventure vacation!

Alan tells me that the food there is fantastic. And, on our first night, I have to admit that the dinner of conch, lobster, snapper and stew was absolutely fantastic! But, on day two, I came down with the flu and had barely more than one fig newton over the remaining 3+ days of the trip. It's like the time we went to Mexico and I got sick. Or the time we went to Paris and I got sick. Or the time... I get sick a lot.

In any case, I didn't let it ruin my trip. I just sat in the chair, stared out at the Caribbean Sea, and couldn't imagine being in a more beautiful place while having stomach cramps.

Check out the slideshow below, or see the photos here.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Hanging Out

OPEN!
Originally uploaded by Sarah&Jason

It's been a while since we posted anything so just a word to anyone who might check our blog once in a while - we're still here! It's just been a crazy and hectic couple of months for us .... work, travel, play - you name it, we've been doing it.

Oh, and now that the writers are all back at their desks (thank you!), of course we've been catching up on all of our shows in our spare time, too. Lost, Battlestar, The Office, etc. So much good TV and so little time to watch it!

I'll post some pictures soon - we have a lot to report from a variety of trips so I promise to get some photos up soon! The picture in this post is of course A&A's little wild child... determined to get back into the car on a recent trip to Morro Bay.

I Love La La Land

In the old days, like two years ago, I wasn't a big fan of Los Angeles. To me, it was all sprawl, fake, and smoggy. The times I spent there on business reinforced that view.

But then, Sarah and I spent the first night of our honeymoon last June in West Hollywood, and my opinion changed. It wasn't that bad, I thought. In fact, I kind of liked it! (Maybe staying at the swank Sunset Marquis had something to do with that...)

Ever since then, we've talked about going back, but it wasn't really a top priority. Then, a few months ago, Sarah added the first few seasons of Entourage to our Netflix queue - and now I'm hooked on Los Angeles! If you've never watched Entourage, it's an HBO series about a young movie star who lives with his three sidekicks/freeloaders. It's way funny (although the first season starts off a bit slow).

Anyway, I'm off track here...

Watching Entourage, I've been like a six-year-old girl watching Hannah Montana, wondering what Vince and the guys are wearing, where they're eating (check out the "location credits" to see where we had breakfast one morning), where they're walking, where they're shopping... NO, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT EITHER! I even just bought a belt because it was like the one that one of the dudes wore on the show! It's starting to get disturbing. (I need to get back to Pennsylvania for a personality reset.)

Yeesh. Where was I? Oh yeah, Los Angeles...

So, with all of the LA hype going on in our house the past few months, Sarah had the wonderful idea of setting up a surprise long-weekend trip to stay at a nice hotel, eat killer food, do some celebrity-hunting, and see the FOO FIGHTERS in concert! Wow, I love her! I've been wanting to see the Foos since way, way back. I was giddy like, um, well, like a six-year-old girl getting tickets to a Hannah Montana concert. And, to make me love her even more, Sarah booked our flights on Virgin America for something like $40 each way! And, she even told me how she booked the earlier flight home just to save like $12! If that's not something to love, then I don't know what love is!

Our trip started Thursday morning, with the concert being later that night. We hit the hotel, changed into our LA Clubbing/Concert attire, and hit the town. First stop - Citrus at Social for some awesome cocktails (and Sarah's pic of their bathroom). Second stop - FOO FIGHTERS! Check out our photos here, or a Foo video to get some sense of their energy:

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The concert was awesome! They killed! (Although, we could have done without the guest appearance by Lemmy, the 62-year-old singer from Motorhead, wearing jeans so freakin' tight you could tell his religion.)

The rest of the weekend was a blur of food and shopping - and some stars! I have to admit, our first star sighting was actually in the San Fran airport before we even left, where we saw Victor Garber (the father from Alias). Our next sighting was of Annie Leibovitz, the photographer, who we saw as we left Fred Segal. Another was Winona Ryder, who is actually very cute in person. The lame-o star sighting had to be Latoya Jackson shopping at the Guess store.

As for food, well, I hate to say it, but nothing compares to San Fran when it comes to food. But, the culinary highlight was our trip to Wolfgang Puck's new steak house, Cut. Sarah (who is nearly a vegetarian) had the wagyu filet and I had the wagyu ribeye. Both were amazing, although now we're spoiled on wagyu and I have no idea how we're going to find it and, more importantly, how we're going to afford it!

After this trip, I'm definitely an LA junkie. I still love San Fran and Northern Cal, but as long as we can fly roundtrip for less than the cost of gas to drive, I can't wait until our next trip!

In fact, I'd better go out right now and grab the latest People and Us Weekly, just so I know where we should eat! ;-)

Surprises Don’t Have to Be Bad

Ask most people and I think they would tell you that I have a mostly-positive outlook on life. Despite that sense of optimism, I’m beginning to realize that my work life has trained me to have a really negative view of surprises – whether at work or at home. I’m sure my need to plan, organize and control most things in my life also has a hand in this as well, but that’s definitely another post!

Over the years, when I have been handed a “surprise” it typically means I drop everything else I’m doing in my life and focus on a really nasty issue at work for several days and nights until the storm has ended. These things of course happen at really bad times – over a major holiday, immediately prior to leaving for a friend’s wedding or family vacation, etc.

In the “home” category, here’s a recent example of a little surprise. Jason and I went snorkeling in Hawaii and saw 5-6 sea turtles in a small bay on the Big Island. It was sea turtle nirvana for me. What I was quite surprised to learn the next morning was the very same little bay was closed right after we left because a 10-foot tiger shark had been spotted prowling around. I think that definitely would have been classified as a (bad) surprise had we met face:face with that shark!

So this past weekend, imagine my shock when I walked into a room of people who all yelled “Sur-prise!” at me around 9pm on a random Saturday night in SF. I have to say it took me several moments to figure out what the heck was going on: Jason had organized a belated birthday party for me. Two days later I’m still a little bit in shock at the whole thing but now I’m trying to figure out what surprised me more – the party itself or the fact that I enjoyed the element of surprise so much!

I guess this experience is changing my view of the world of surprises because now I’m thinking of all of the other unexpected things that have happened recently that are really great. Like the fact that my friend Amy flew up for 24 hours just to make the party. Or that I learned my friend Joanna’s S.O. use to be a DJ and loves to go dancing (who would have ever guessed that James was such a dancing queen?!). Or that my Dad is becoming a spontaneous traveler (much to the delight of my mother).

So I guess surprises can be a really good thing – it’s all in how you look at it. I hope I have many more in 2008. Happy New Year!

El Camino Sushi

I love sushi, but I don't eat it all that often for two reasons: the first is that the sushi joints I like are either too far away or too expensive for daily use, and the second is... well, if I put the second reason in print, I'll get smacked when I get home.

Since we moved to Pacifica, we've been on a quest to find local places to dine. Nona's, at Lindamar Beach, is a favorite, as is Toto's Pizza. And we've started to find some others in the Sunset District, like The Pizza Place on Noriega (no really, that's the name). After two-plus years, we're only now finding a good selection of places that we'd try for a second time. Lately, we've been heading to West Portal, but that's a subject for another post... On to sushi!

When we look for places to eat, we usually drive up and down El Camino Real, and usually between Westborough Blvd. (the main feeder to our house) and Millbrae Ave. (near Yumy Yogurt...). That stretch of El Camino is littered with taquerias and Chinese restaurants, and surprisingly, sushi joints. I always laugh to myself, or make a comment to Sarah, that it's so funny to see sushi joints - where one likes to see operating-room cleanliness - sandwiched between so many random, not-so-clean strip malls, vacuum repair shops, and wig stores. And on a street named "El Camino Real." (Just FYI, that's Spanish for "The Royal Road" or "The King's Highway.")

So, I finally decided to give them all their fair shake! You know - don't judge a book by it's cover and all that crap. I need sushi. I crave sushi. And some of the greatest sushi joints that I've tried in the past haven't looked all that special from the outside. Maybe I'll find a diamond in the rough? Maybe I'll find that little place that no one knows about, that's run by some 90-year-old master sushi chef who gets line-caught fish right off of the boat every morning at 4 AM! Or maybe I'll just get a bacterial infection that cleans me out like an industrial bottle of Draino.

First thing's first - map out the plan. On the map below, you'll see nine push pins within the sushi corridor, as we're going to refer to the shaded area. The seven pins in green are the legitimate joints with El Camino addresses, while the two outliers in blue are close to the route, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt.


Click Here to View Larger Map

Here's the list, from north to south:

• Mijouri Sushi Bune Restaurant
• Sunny Sushi
• Sushi House
• Ichiban Sushi
• Kobe Sake Japanese Sushi Restaurant
• Okane Sushi
• Wast Wast Sushi House
• Sushi Kei
• Osho Japanese Cuisine

Being someone who thinks in Excel, this has to be a quantitative exercise. I mean, I just can't eat at each of these and then expect to remember if it was good or not. I need a score, a measurement. So, here's the plan:

1. Each joint will be sampled for dinner, not lunch. I want to be able to relax over the fish, not just scarf it down.
2. For the most part, I'll get the orders "to go." But, I will order them in the place and wait for my order while I absorb the scene.
3. I'll order a selection of "standard" items at each place, and then add on an additional roll and a few additional nigiri items that are specialties, either listed on their daily board, by menu highlights, or by asking the server for "what's good today."
4. The standard items will be (pretty normal stuff, but I'm sure some places will be out of a few, which is why I list so many):
• Hamachi (Yellowtail)
• Hirame (Flounder)
• Maguro (Tuna)
• Saba (Mackerel)
• Sake (Salmon)
• Uni (Sea Urchin)
• California roll
• Spicy tuna hand roll
5. For the "special" items, I'll go for one of their signature rolls, and one or two selections of Nigiri that they recommend. I'll try to stay away from Toro, since I'd like to stay on a budget, and from any shellfish, veggie rolls, crazy-ass $20 rolls, or salads. This is pure sushi!
6. For the full taste of the establishment, I'll use their included chopsticks and soy sauce. Plus, that'll save me like 18 cents per joint from not using my own soy or imparting wear and tear on my personal chopsticks.

Judging the food will be equally rigid:

1. 30 points - Fish Freshness, Texture, and Taste - It better be fresh, firm, and tasty.
2. 30 points - Rice Texture, Stickiness, and Taste - I have to admit that I like my rice sticky, but I also like it to have some flavor, and I like it to be a bit warm.
3. 10 points - Nori Taste and Texture - Since rolls are in the mix, they'd better be good.
4. 10 points - Creativity - Their specialties better be special.
5. 20 points - Vibe - This covers cleanliness (the Sarah test), crowds (are other people eating there), waitstaff (were they nice), etc. Basically, would I go back with someone else.
6. I'll also post the total price, and the price for the standard items (if I remember to write them down... I should buy an iPhone for this project!)

Hopefully, I can get started this week. But, with nine joints and the pace at which I eat sushi, this may take a while. Stay tuned...

Let the soy sauce flow!

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Today's view from my home office! I love California!

Birthdays are great – especially mine!

Ah… Another year wiser, another year closer to death. Well, at least now my golden years will be in FULL HD! But let’s start at the beginning…

Birthdays are always great, and when Sarah is involved, they tend to be even greater. While it would be hard for her to top last year’s present to me of a surprise trip to NYC for great food, drinks, shopping, and shows, she really outdid herself this year!

It all began on Sunday, when I proved that I’m not so old by running the San Fran US Half Marathon! That’s 13.1 miles of beautiful scenery from Fishermans Wharf, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and back. Our buddy Ted (of “Jen and Ted” fame) and I share the same birthday, and the duo were coincidently in Frisco for the marathon/birthday weekend. I’d like to say that I ran the marathon “with” Ted, but since he finished about 50 minutes ahead of me, that would be a lie.

After burning about 2,500 calories, and having two birthdays to celebrate, Jen, Ted, Sarah, and I all headed to a phenomenal dinner at Restaurant Gary Danko! Five of the best Michelin-star-awarded courses that you will ever consume! I started with the foie gras and it got better with every course and every bite! The scallops with butternut squash puree were amazing, the beef tenderloin was perfect, the cheese course was over the top, and the passion fruit panna cotta was sublime! And that was just my dinner!

But let’s get back to the gifts…

It all started last Spring, when the real Steve Jobs announced the iPhone. Being a gadget geek, I haven’t been able to get enough info on the device over the past eight or nine months. But, the key item that kept me from actually purchasing one on my own was the inbred frugality coded into the DNA of all Western Pennsylvanians. It wasn’t so much the $599 original price (softened to $399, but still steep) as it was the “first year” cost. After AT&T released their iPhone rate plans, some other geeks did the math and found that the cost of the iPhone plus the required plan was over $1,900 in the first year! And, you were locked into a TWO year contract! As my grandmother would have said, “That’s dear!”

Even with the cost, I talked about the iPhone a lot, and Sarah correctly identified that as a great birthday present for me. But, as is usually my ADHD case, about a month before my birthday, I went on an exhaustive search for a cheaper alternative, narrowing my choices down to several phones and screwing up Sarah’s plans in the process.

So, what’s a resourceful, thoughtful, generous gift-giver like Sarah to do? Go for my #2 obsession these days - HDTV! That’s right, high definition television. FULL high definition television! 1080p baby! The holy grail of all things entertainment, or so I’ve been told by every guy I know.

I’ve struggled this season to watch yet another round of Steelers football on standard television, and I have to tell you that I die a little more each week. Not seeing the individual blades of grass or the beads of sweat really diminishes the entire sport. How have we survived as a species on such a low technology form of entertainment delivery? Even Darwin would be perplexed.

But, as is usually the case with Sarah, she does everything better than expected! I’ve had my eyes set on a 46” LCD, and Sarah did me one (inch) better and surprised me with a 47” LCD! If Sarah’s thoughtfulness could be measured in distance, it would be defined by that extra inch! That’s an extra 4.4% of viewable area, and an extra 4.4% that I love Sarah today!

But that’s not all! Sarah upped the birthday ante by including a spanking new PS3 with Blu-Ray DVD plus Spiderman 3 on Blu-Ray, and a few other movies! Wow!

And, to top it off, Sarah made my favorite meal – homemade pizza! One with REAL pepperoni (as I was beginning to think that turkey pepperoni was the only thing available in these parts), and one with thinly sliced potatoes, rosemary, and lemon puree (Try it! It’s fantastic!).
For the finish, Sarah made a very cool, and very beautiful, giant cupcake cake (since cupcakes are another one of our recent obsessions)!

All in all, it was another fantastic birthday, but only because Sarah made it so! It wouldn’t have been so perfect without Sarah planning and stressing the entire day, and I loved every minute of it! And I love my new HDTV as much as I love Sarah. In fact, it’ll probably being a tear to my eye now every time I “shhhh!” her when I’m watching television!

Aww, that makes my heart hurt…

Rubies Don't Seem Quite Right

Today my parents are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. It's really quite an accomplishment given all the divorce you read and hear about. I'm not sure exactly what's gotten them through all those years together, but generally speaking my Mom talks a lot and my Dad pretends to listen a lot! Whatever it is, kudos to them for being a great example to my sister, brother and I, of what it really means to be together "for better or for worse."

Their anniversary reminded me of a project that Jason and I started on our honeymoon. Since Jason was bored by Day Two of our trip, he got us brainstorming on how we'd like to celebrate our future anniversaries... which got us laughing about the traditional lists of what gifts go with what anniversaries (ie, first year anniversary = paper.... puh-lease!). We decided those lists need some serious updating in order to fit how people really live (and celebrate) today. For example, my parents 40th would traditionally call for rubies, but I'm quite sure my Mom is more eager for that trip to Greece she's currently planning. We never finished our "welcome to the real, modern world" list (I think the 11 am happy hours were to blame), but had we made it to 40 year anniversary I imagine it would have been something like: Full week at couples health/fitness spa.

Just for kicks, here are the others we came up with... what would be on your list?

1st year=dinner out to five star restaurant in city of your choice

2nd year=pricey tech item for home/home theatre

3rd year=sports/outdoors/hobby equipment

4th year=learn something new together (i.e., cooking classes or dancing lessons)

subsequent years=long weekend trips; every 5 years=major trip (ie, Galapagos); and so on... yes, we have lofty goals but hey, my philosophy is that these things are often like self-fulfilling prophecies so why not shoot big?

Calm Waters

This might seem like an odd title for a posting about a whitewater rafting trip, but I have to tell you that after two days on the water, I feel so much more serene than I did before we left! In a last-minute attempt to take advantage of the long weekend, Jason pulled together a trip to the American River - and like so many things we do, this unexpected adventure turned out to be one of the best.

Jason & I picked up Marissa at the extremely unnatural hour of 6am on Sunday morning - despite her love of the snooze button, Marissa was ready to go and even stayed awake in the car the entire trip. For those of you who know Marissa well, feel free to congratulate her on this accomplishment the next time you see her. Meighan & Hobbs and Joanna & James met us at the outfitter's very toasty parking lot where we quickly assessed our combined inventory of sunscreen, alcohol, and baby wipes (Meighan can provide details on this upon request!). As we made our way down to the river on a rickety old bus on a bumpy and twisty road, James & I had to fight to keep our respective breakfasts from finding its way back up...

The girls decided to take a boat for ourselves, leaving the guys on their own to be manly or whatever it is they do when girls aren't around. After successfully getting through the tunnel chute rapid (the rapid with the biggest "consequence") we joined the other boats to find that Jason was significantly more soggy than his friends. He calmly let us know that he had "fallen out of the boat." What we later learned via James - an exciting and dramatic storyteller - was that Jason was pitched from the boat about halfway down the tunnel chute (around the exact point where the guides had said "whatever you do, don't fall out there!"). After getting tossed around in the rapid and spending a little too much time to be comfortable underwater, Jason eventually popped up downriver where Hobbs hauled him back into the boy boat. The rest of the day was filled with jumping off rocks, hiking to waterfalls and hidden caves, and of course more rafting. That evening we hung out along the shoreline skipping rocks, talking about Owen Wilson (what, you wanted us to discuss something deep and meaningful?), and the magical power of a cold beer after a long day on the water.

Day two was as much fun as day one (minus a near-death experience) and gave us all a chance to really admire the beautiful scenery... somewhere along the way one of the boys said something to the effect of "wouldn't it be great if you could get just five minutes of this every morning" and I couldn't agree more. It's all about perspective and spending a weekend rafting and camping with my friends was just what I needed to get back on track.

Mmmm - Grilled Salmon with Pineapple-Citrus Salsa

As we promised, we're going to write a bit more about food. (We figured that if we wrote more about alcohol, cocktails, and wine, someone would have an intervention...)

Oh, by the way, today was bottling day for our CrushPad pinot - Three Graces! If you recall, it's a Russian River Valley pinot noir from the Amber Ridge vineyard, the same source of grapes for such notable wines as Kosta Browne and Siduri, and is immediately adjacent to the famed Gary Farrell Starr Ridge vineyard. Amber Ridge vineyard was also recently sold to Nickel & Nickel winery for $130,000 per acre! So, apparently it's pretty good stuff. Here's a pic of bottle #1 coming off of the bottling line. Yeah, it's a terrible photo from my Razr, so send your complaints to Motorola, not us.

We have 4.75 cases, plus two magnums. That's equivalent to 59 bottles, so if you invite us over for dinner in the next 18 months, you know what we're bringing!

OK back to food, because we're not obsessed with wine, we're obsessed with food...

A week or so ago, we had a hunkerin' for some salmon. So, we scoured the 'fridge, pulled out some ingredients, and came up with our newly-famous Grilled Salmon with Pineapple-Citrus Salsa! Mmmm, it was yummy! For the accompaniment, we also scoured the 'fridge and came up with something different. Both recipes are below. Next time, we'll take fancy pictures and liven this blog up a bit!

Grilled Salmon with Pineapple-Citrus Salsa

Ingredients (or, "what we found in our 'fridge that wasn't rotten")

• 1 cup diced pineapple - Sarah had purchased some pineapple for a previous "grilled veggie extravaganza," and these were the leftovers. We're estimating one cup, but it would be more accurately described as "whatever was left in the container."
  
• 1 orange, diced - Jason found an orange, about three weeks old, that was previously leveraged for an orange twist for his old-school Manhattan (therefore, about three turns of rind were absent).
• Juice of 2/3rds of a lime - Sarah was having a gin-n-tonic to soothe away the turmoil of another day schlepping ink, so we used whatever hadn't been cut into cocktail garnish.
• 3 tbsp fresh mint - As if. Mint would have been perfect in the salsa, but none was to be found in the crisper drawer. But we did find cilantro. So, feel free to substitute cilantro for mint in this recipe.
• 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger - Ha. Again, we looked and looked, but 'twas not to be. So, as we did, feel free to substitute powdered ginger. But don't be happy about it!
  
• 2 tbsp olive oil - Yum-o! In our kitchen, olive oil is a requirement in almost everything.
  
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar - Just because.
• Salt & Pepper
• 2 servings of salmon - Obviously. And obviously splashed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.
  

Preparation

• Mix everything together (other than the salmon...) and let fester (or, "let the flavors meld at room temperature for an hour or so").
  
• Grill salmon. If you need more direction than that, you'd be better off going to Applebees...
• Put half of the salsa on each plate, top with the grilled salmon, add the side dish.
• Consume!
  

For the side dish, we've been big on roasted veggies of late. What we found in our 'fridge (maybe that should be a theme?) was one yellow zucchini, 1/2 head of cauliflower, and 1/2 of an onion. We sliced it all up, mixed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted it at 425F for about 20 minutes. It's amazing what a little roasting will do to three white (i.e. "devoid of flavor") veggies!

Well, there you go. Easy to follow?

Let us know how your version turns out!

Next in Line...

A few weeks after Jason and I returned from our honeymoon, we were off to Bend, Oregon for my friend Annika's wedding. Bend is an adorable town about 3 hours from Portland. We even picked up real estate flyers while we were there - it was quaint but not too small and had a very independent vibe; and, there's rafting and fly fishing in the summer and skiing in the winter.

Annika and I have spent a lot of time being single in SF so it's kind of cool that we ended up getting married within a month of each other. It also meant we had someone to compare notes with along the wedding-planning journey so that others didn't have to listen to our "woes."

Annika & Brian's wedding was amazingly beautiful with the mountain backdrop -the reception was held in a canyon with Smith Rock as the focal point. Everyone's gaze shifted however, as the sun went down - leaving clear dark blue skies for the full moon to make its entrance - it was a scene out of a Hollywood movie and all over the grounds you could see people stopping and just staring as the moon rose over the rocks.

One of the things I liked most about Annika's wedding was that it was very engaging... in the sense that there were lots of things to do that got people moving around and interacting with each other. There were activities for the kids, horses in an old-fashioned corrall needing to be fed apple slices, etc. The most fun was the self-portrait area - everyone, from young to old to shy to outgoing - participated in this activity. Annika had a photographer build a self-portrait station, and then people used the pics to add to their guest book message. People got really creative and as the night wore on, the photos got funnier and funnier (imagine sevral tipsy girls in fancy dresses trying to spell out "Gonzaga" to honor Annika's alma mater!). Here's a set of shots that we did with Julie and Rob (Annika's sis and bro-in-law). We saved this one for ourselves b/c it's a great memory of a fantastic weekend - the photographer running the station printed copies for everyone as they exited. It was like being at really-well-run, high-class theme park!

FOOD (and drink)!

We LOVE food!

Not in a creepy way, but in a foodie, San Francisco, obsessive, epicurian kind of way. And, it's gotten stronger in the past few months. Yeah, the caterer tastings and the cake tastings leading up to our wedding definitely kicked us up a few notches. And, the His & Her cocktail trials definitely got us going on the cocktail front. But, this isn't a new thing.

Sarah has been on a gin-tasting quest since... well, pretty much since she graduated from wine coolers and into gin at age 16. (OK, age 21. But it was funnier with "16.") In fact, at a recent wedding in Bend, OR, Sarah tried Cascade Mountain gin and Desert Juniper - both distilled in Oregon! (But her fav is still Bardenay, from Boise, ID.)

And Jay, well, among other things, he's on a quest to make a good pugliese loaf (still going...), and make a good pizza dough (like A16!), and a killer cupcake (like Sprinkles!), and the ultimate steak (he thinks he found it in last month's Saveur, but his brother disagrees).

Anyway, we've been reading a lot of food blogs lately to help stoke our gourmet fire, including Coconut & Lime (which has what looks like a fantastic recent lamb recipe), and Vanilla Garlic (which has a semi-focus on original - and we mean original - cupcakes, like maple bacon and rosemary lemon). In addition, our friend Frank, who's an amazing cook, continues to pass along recipies and tips to keep us going, including his recent pizza dough recipe, which he referred to as "the BOMB!"

With all that reading, and with all of our experimentation, we were thinking, "Hey, why don't we start blogging on our food exploits?" It's not like we're not trained in the kitchen arts...Jason took a four-hour pie and tart baking class, for goodness sake! So, we've got kitchen cred!

So, stay tuned for some food-centric blogs to supplement our usual drivel (or, maybe a second, food-specific blog?). We're making roasted salmon with carmelized onions and figs right now, Jay is drinking a cucumber gimlet (you see who wears the apron in this family!), and Sarah just came home with "artisan chocolate cake" from Safeway for $2.99 (although, she get's HP props for working until 1 AM last night and prepping for a 10 PM conference call tonight (damn those Austrailian scientists!))!

Shades of Blue

It's no secret that I'm a fan of the color blue. I like it in all shades (just take a look at the walls in our house) - I don't discriminate. In fact, my wedding dress was even blue. What really blew (no pun intended, honestly!) me away though, was the variety of "blues" found in the waters around Bora Bora. I never knew blue came in so many lovely options - I may have to repaint the walls, yet again!

During the honeymoon, Jason and I took some time to REALLY relax... not your garden-variety lounging, we did some serious my-butt-is-sore-from-not-moving-in-six-hours resting. And when not reading a book or examining the insides of my eyelids, I stared at the water and constantly wondered how it got so blue (deep thoughts by Sarah). When I (rarely) chose to come back to reality, it was usually due to some enormous fish (in shades of blue, purple and green) that caught my eye, or even an octopus or sting ray, depending on the day!

If anyone reading this thinks they need a vacation, I'm here to back you up... go make your reservations and find your own shades of blue! There's nothing like time away from your normal routine to make you realize what's important in life... mostly, living it.

Here are my favorite "blue" pictures from the wedding and honeymoon...

See more pics from Bora Bora on our Flickr account HERE.