Exercise and YOU

So I've been walking around all day like a zombie with a stick up its ass because I had way too much fun working out a couple of days ago. It's weird. I've always hated exercising in a gym--organized sports or outdoor recreation was the only way I ever wanted to get into shape. But now my metabolism has slowed and YES I AM FAT. It's super-annoying and you'd think such a negative thing would make exercising like super-shitty but for some reason, it's been great. I ran 2 miles, and it was, by far, the most fun 2 miles I have ever ran. There is probably a shorter way to say that, but because this is an informal blog I am prone to rambling.

I also appreciated that I didn't have to join a (retardedly expensive) gym, and could just use my apartment complex's fitness center. For those of you who weren't aware, they are retardedly expensive!!! Urban Active was a (still steep but) fairly reasonable $30/month, until I was ready to sign, and they told me about the "$80 initiation fee. Oh and once and [sic] a while the gym will hit you with a maintenance fee; that's about $20." Um. No... So I went to Whole Foods and spent a bunch of money on cheese. Yeah teenage rebellion, I still gotcha!

Today's snack is mostly badass because it is freaking cheap, but also because it is a complete meal. It's something we liberals know and love: sushi! But easier to make! A Fresh Market just opened down the street from me on Old Brownsboro Rd. and the Watterson Expy. They sell sashimi tuna for $10/lb., and you only need about 1/6 lb. to get full. That's $1.67/serivng!!! Beat that, Takahashi.

You'll also need:

1/4-1/2 an avocado, sliced and/or diced (it's raw; this isn't complicated; think "bite-sized")

1 cup sushi rice (erring on the "too much" side)

1 1/4 cups water

a dash of rice vinegar

a pinch of sugar

1/8-1/4 sheet dried nori (optional; I really like it)

a bunch of pickled ginger/gari

a bunch of wasabi (man up)

soy sauce

I feel like everyone is laughing at me because of how stupid-simple this is. STOP THAT.

Put the water and rice and rice vinegar and sugar in a pot and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer. Chop up all of the aforementioned other stuff. Put over the rice. Congratulations, you needed these instructions.

I had the greatest day yesterday, everyone. It was sorta bizarre because I had a rather stressful time cooking up some Indian food and slept TERRIBLY. Hey, does anyone who exercises late at night (I went to the gym at 6 pm) have unrestful sleep? Maybe "unrestful" isn't the word, because in the morning I actually felt very refreshed and energized, but I woke up a million times in stress. Anyways! I can't remember the last time I felt so optimistic throughout an entire day. Must have been "runner's high". Listening to a great Dick's Picks volume (#20) of the Grateful Dead in the morning on my way to work was a real treat, too. Since I took the whole catalogue off of my computer (couldn't stand the 20 gigs of it anymore...too much to sort through), it's been years without them. It's a band that you can't just choose one song to play, but a band that you listen to once in a while. Highly quotable/impressionable, I might add, but maybe that's my high school nostalgia/paternal-bonding-memories kicking in...

I also got my iPod up and running again. I had left it dormant because it was slightly too full (probably like 1 or 2 songs, literally, too full), and my music library is 40 gigs larger than it (not including the goddamned Grateful Dead) so I knew it was going to be an existential project that my impatient mind-brain couldn't handle. But because I wanted to go to the gym and listen to it at work in the back while I UNSTAPLE and TAPE and PAPERCLIP tons of paper products for hours on end in order to prep said paper for scanning, I had to update it. I can tell you that the following music is freaking awesome:

1. The Van-Dells, off of the complete Stax-Volt recordings (also an excellent compilation). I feel like I'm in a movie about Chicago when I listen to them; somewhat reminiscent of Booker T. and the MG's

2. Roxy Music, Country Life. Roxy Music is Brian Eno's band so you should probably listen to them. I hate Avalon but Siren is great too.

3. Everything Peter Johnson hooked me up with. In fact, I wish I were listneing to Peter Johnson's iPod instead of my own. It's so, so sad. But we got Heart (uncanny resemblence to Joni Mitchell that I just noticed...if you can get past visualizations of Guitar Hero's "Crazy on You", this is well worth it--and a CONCEPT ALBUMMM), Dreamboat Annie; XTC, White Music; and Idlewild (they sound like REM!), 100 Broken Windows

4. Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue. I bought this (and lent it and lost it, same old story) while I was writing my thesis and never had a bunch of time to listen to it, though I dug it immediately. It's like John Lennon meets Elton John. Wow they have similar names. Yes Dennis Wilson was in the Beach Boys. This album is rich with genius transitions and has a variety of genres and themes. Just released in 2008 or something. Look it up.

Happy sushi snacking!

BI-BIM-BAP, BI-BIM-BAP

U-S-A, U-S-A...oh hello everybody! In the spirit of the Olympics, I'm going to broadcast my new international pallette, but mostly rant and rave about ME in the last few months...

So, Indian food, fucking sweet. I was totally anti-Louisville-restaurant-scene forever until I tried making Indian food (yes, my first Indian cuisine was made by ME) and really liked it to the point where I felt like giving precious moolah to a restaurant. I didn't dig Sitar so much, but I also hate Paneer Saag, an unflavorful mush of cheese and spinach which Americans like to order because they know what cheese and spinach are. For all of you who just can't force yourself to order anything but Chicken Tikka Masala (not actually an authentic Indian dish, by the way; "tikka" just means "skinless" and "masala" is not well-defined but was basically just combined with "tikka" to make it sound more Indian-like), get Butter Chicken (the dish Tikka Masala is based upon) or Chicken Korma (a yogurt-almond dish that's a little sweeter but just as creamy).

Speaking of Asian food, who's tried Korean food? NO ONE. So there's this great restaurant Joule in Seattle, the owners of which are good friends with my fabulous UW librarian godmother, and they got a chance to be on Iron Chef a few weeks ago. Their ingredient was some great fish no one's ever heard of. After watching the show, I knew I had to recreate bibimbap, a very popular Korean rice dish--HOLD UP, WHY IS JERRY GARCIA ON CNBC? Sorry I'm totally at work and we have this great TV that I mostly watch instead of working. Holy shit I am so excited. Did you know that CNBC is hardly boring and more like E!? Er, "E!"?

Whoa, back to bibimbap. It's a dish that allows for a whole lot of creativity, because there's no set way to make it, necessarily. You just need a protein (I've had it with scallops marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, sriracha, and chili powder, and then a thin piece of steak seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar, and cooked in coconut oil), a green (a lot of seaweed or kale/collard greens cooked in sliced garlic), something crunchy (thinly julienned cucumber, carrots, and/or green onions), a slightly raw to completely raw egg (I am a HUGE FAN of raw eggs, so sorry...I liked mine marinated in soy sauce, a friend liked his flash fried and all warm and gooey), and THE SAUCE THAT TRUMPS ALL SAUCES, gochujang! That is my JAM!

Enough about food which everyone finds boring and predictable and onto the only thing anyone finds interesting and spontaneous: MEEEE.

Oh me? Life is pretty legit right now! I feel like I'm totally teetering on the edge of something awesome, and pretty much everything is pushing me as hard as it can to try to get me to be awesome, but I can't seem to let that happen yet! I got a book deal with a professor back at Reed, and I am super-stoked. It's on the mathematics of music, a surprisingly undeveloped subject which interests a lot of young folks out there, and it will be geared toward high schoolers or those obsessed with movies like A Beautiful Mind or shows like Numb3rs, which I will always pronounce "numbthreeares", I don't give a FUCK. We're thinking about calling it "Numbers and Notes: The Mathematics of Music", but I kind of hate that title. PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you think of something so clever it would fly off the shelves of Powell's like People Magazine.

Then, I'm just getting started doing independent/freelance web design in HTML/CSS, so, if anyone needs some of that done on the cheap, lay it on me. Also, people, it's SUPER EASY to learn and I'll give you some links to get you started, if you'd like.

I'm photographing a wedding in late May for Jon Ott's younger sister. She is the dope shit. I've sort of put photography on the back-burner (though I did get some nice ones of the great Jonathan Richman the other night at Zanzibar...he's a hoot, oooo-weeee), certainly financially, in efforts to focus and use my time more productively. Plus all of my friends are Nikon shooters and give me shit for some reason and I just don't get it. FUCK YOU GUYS.

Open mic coming soon with me and an acoustic guitar. I'm thinking "Lucinda" (Randy Newman), "Nobody Knows You (When You're Down and Out)" (traditional?), "I Fall to Pieces" (Patsy Cline), "Love in Vain" (Robert Johnson), and something else, maybe an original piece, or something more poppy. 5 songs seems about right though...at least quintessential...

Finally, I'm working this lame office job which cracks me up every day after I get off and I'm super tired and have no energy for the aforementioned. Snow days have been the saving grace. Really, I should be looking for jobs instead of writing this. But...

I'M COMING TO RENN FAYREEEEEEEEEEEEE

as I've saved up enough at this job, and prolly for 4/20 too, beforehand. See you then!

FOOD IS AWESOME

This is most definitely why I'm fat. That and I'm unemployed, captivated by my computer, and just generally a puddle of nothingness. But! I do love me some cooking. There's nothing quite like having no money to go out to make one become a chef.

That's why I present to you my first recipe!!! It's simple, cheap, and you've probably had it before, but it's also complex in taste, and you've probably only had it in expensive Italian restaurants. It's...

SHITAKE MUSHROOM RISOTTO

This dish requires a lot of "babysitting", so I'd recommend getting all your ingredients out and chopping them up ahead of time.

You'll need, for 1 (very hungry) person...

1/2 cup risotto (arborio rice)
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/4-1/2 cup shitake (or any kind, really) mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup white wine
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/4-1/2 cup yellow onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup parmesean cheese, grated
some thyme, doesn't matter what form (though fresh or dried is better than ground)
some black pepper

Cooking risotto is different from your previous rice experiences. I like it, because, well, I've fucked up a lot of rice in my day, and this process allows you to know exactly what is up with your rice at all times. It's like Jersey Shore, or other quality television shows. First, put the broth and white wine on the stove, and get it hot or boiling. Then, in a separate (and medium-to-large) saucepan, get the olive oil hot, then put your onions and garlic in. Cook them until the onions are translucent and smell all nice-like. Next, put the risotto into the same pot. Weird, right?! Coat the rice in the olive oil. Now add about 1/4 cup of broth. Constantly stir (this is the theme, by the way). Wait until the broth has been absorbed by the rice to add another 1/4 cup. Constantly stir.. Add the mushrooms at some early point (takes about 10 minutes to cook em real good). Constantly stir. It will take about 15-20 minutes, constantly stirring, to absorb all of the broth. Upon the final addition of broth, add the parmesean cheese, thyme, and pepper. At this point, if you are not constantly stirring, the rice is now burning on the bottom. This is why you should have been stirring.

The result is friggin' awesome. I've also made it without the wine, and it was almost as delicious (and still delicious). The parmesean cheese dominates the flavor, so use sparingly, if you don't like it. But let's just face it, who doesn't like parmesean? Isn't that the one cheese we can all agree on? Aren't there reasons we should love Italians, in spite of Jersey Shore and The Sopranos?

Of course, there's a picture. I just haven't taken it yet.

But I do want to post a picture right now, because I'm OCD like that. So here is a picture I cannot stop staring at even though I hate cake, unless it's from Pix or has cheese in it. It's Owen's birthday cake!!!


Yay!!!

That old stand-by...

So I've been out here exactly 1 month--my dad a little longer--and both of us are still looking for that one restaurant we go to when we're all out of ideas. Our only criterion for this "stand-by" restaurant is that it possess at least one item on its menu that we always crave, and won't break the bank. Well, I think we've found it: Room. Dad likes the brie, bacon, and honey hamburger (hold the brie, bacon, and honey), and I enjoy the Asian-style beef carpaccio, garnished with ginger, sesame seeds, green onion, rocket (spring greens), and soy sauce. My Indian-spiced main course of rack of lamb was also excellent, but I didn't love the sides that came with the orange-almond halibut I'd had last time, though the fish itself was tasty. Hard not to love rack of lamb, though. On the side was some mint cous-cous. Dad's cream of zucchini soup was very good, and the raspberry creme brulee was excellent though simple.


Another cool thing about Room is that they have a selection of board games you can play while waiting for your food--surprising for the upscale interior, but adding to a sense of relaxation. I had almost forgotten how to play Mastermind, but it turns out it's one of the most straightforward games in Parker Brothers' repertoire. I mercilessly won a match in 4 turns. OH YEAH. (That's my Mac-from-It's-Always-Sunny-Season-4-finale-voice, that is, when Charlie announces that Mac gets to be both Night and Day Man in his musical "The Nightman Cometh," mocking Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh," though the names are where the similarity stops.)

SPEAKING OF IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY...Season 5 begins tonight! Well, tomorrow morning for me. Don't know how timely European television is with network premieres in the States, but the internet should serve me well.

Tonight should be really fun--I've made a friend! Well, I sort of forced the relationship. He's the landlord's son, and the exchange of telephone numbers was virtually before we had met, but he's 20 and attends "university" in nearby Delft and speaks perfect English and Dutch (well, they all do here, but he's Australian). Anyways, we're going to watch a soccer match at an Irish pub a few doors down from my apartment, then we might catch this carnival-smelling thing at a downtown park. It's probably a lame festival (free entry) but I rode past it Tuesday night on my way home from seeing Kit Armstrong and a few others play in the Chamber Music Festival and really wanted to photograph it. Armstrong debuted an original quintet, inspired by one of Mozart's, for "blazersprogram", or, "winds" (bassoon/French horn/oboe/clarinet) + piano. He's only 17! American, but it reminded me most of Schoenberg, though a little more fluid. It was all right. I think I liked the Beethoven Sonata for Piano and Cello that opened the night the best.

Later dudes.

"The most beautiful restaurant in the world."

That's how Andrew Lloyd Webber once described The Witchery in Edinburgh, Scotland. Located a few doors down from the very touristy Edinburgh Castle, this fine dining spot boasts a traditional Scottish fare with a decadent twist. My dad and I waltzed in, exhausted from climbing all the way up to High Street (it's high, yep) from our hotel on Grassmarket. Really that's only about half a mile, but vertically I'd guesstimate at least 800 feet. We were underdressed, but it was no problem, and neither was our lack of reservation (though we had to be finished eating by 8:00, said the host). Once seated, I took in the surroundings--lavish wooden walls that looked like they bore a great history, a single red leather bench that snaked around the entire perimeter, and beautiful table settings fit for a king.


I started with the haggis, neaps, and toddies, for, "when in Rome..." Now, it may look like a pile of dirt (it does really look like a pile of dirt), but haggis is seriously the best thing I've tried in--maybe ever! What is it? Aged mutton (sheep's meat), generously spiced and salted. It has the consistency of hamburger meat, but it is much more tender. Neaps are the turnips, and toddies are potatoes. At The Witchery, the turnips are pureed and the toddies fried. The fat content of sheep meat must be incredible, because I could not stop eating it.


For my main course, I tried the "pig's cheek", stuffed with "black pudding" and wrapped in Serrano ham. Don't know what black pudding is; don't particularly want to know. On the side were some roasted pears and a nice sauce reminiscent of hollandaise, minus the lemon. It tasted like pig, all right. I was trying to be adventuresome, but overall, it was a bit too sweet and lacked any acid. Oh it wasn't bad, but the REAL treat of the night was...


DESSERT! Oh my god dessert. For 10 pounds, one gets to try the whole array of sweets that The Witchery offers. I failed to get a great picture, but all of them were so amazing that I must include this one.

The first one (and best one...well, it's difficult to tell when it's your first, as your palate gets sort of ruined) was a sort of creme brulee, except instead of sugar, it had heathered honey! Amazingly delicate with a really nice finish, my dad and I literally fought over bites. It was rough. Then there were two ice creams: one of "mulled winter fruits" and cinnamon, and the other a nice chocolate. I love fragrant ice cream, and the mulled winter fruits reminded me of lavender. In the background, you'll see an orange custard. The shot glass was much too small for our small sugar spoon. In my best British, I asked the waiter, "Now how do you suppose I eat that?" He got me a smaller spoon. It still didn't suffice. So, my dad and I were all clever and drunken and turned the spoon around to scrape out the last lovely bit (and the only orange flavoring to the custard). The chocolate mousse you see in the foreground wasn't too rich, nor too light. It was sort of a heavy pudding rather than a mousse, but not the almost-hard-they're-so-thick-with-chocolate cakes you'll see in other restaurants. The strawberries with a small piece of shortbread on the top was unusually sweet and really delicious, providing a nice tartness to the platter of sugar. We finished with the layered raspberry dessert, and good thing, because it was the least memorable of the bunch (though very pretty).

Overall, an excellent meal and experience. The night ended up with some amazingly thin and flavorless ale and Gin--the card game, that is--at Maggie Dickson's. The story of Maggie Dickson is quite fascinating. Essentially, she was buried alive! You'll have to read the rest on Wikipedia; it's too long to tell, and I haven't got any of the details. But honestly, who likes Guinness that's tried "real beer"? I've gotten quite used to the Holland and Belgium beers, Amstel, Leffe, Hoegaarden...i.e., beers with spice, bitterness...anything! Guinness may be dark, but it tastes like water with a bit of bread or yeast in it. Just nothing. However, I still insist that America makes the best beer. I miss me some IPA. Or any kind of ale, for that matter--besides this watery English bullshit. I've even gotten over Newcastle, which used to be my standby at low-selection outlets. Too watery!

This blog is inspired by Kate Williams' entries at http://sea-salted.blogspot.com/. Hope you enjoyed my first post!