This Week, I’ve Been Mostly Eating…

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20120513_202810This week, I’ve been mostly eating the little meals:

A lovely one-egg omelette with a filling of goats cheese, tomato and fennel shavings.

Salt-pepper-and-celery baby squid with a green salsa made from lime juice, capers and fresh mint, served with a poached egg. (Sounds weird but is very nice indeed.)

Fresh asparagus and a little pancake. Green asparagus, as we can’t find white one in Britain. Too bad, for this meal, white asparagus would certainly have been the better choice.

A quick chicken, roasted “Catalonian style,” that is, roasted on top of a simple yet fairly hot ratatouille made with tomatoes, chilly, green peppers, and chorizo, all served with Elfe potatoes.

 

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Grow!

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20120512_142628Ah, wonderful. This weekend, and hopefully not only for this weekend, spring has returned after several week’s absence. It’s still a little chilly, but the sun is out and the sky, while not cloudless, definitely shows a good amount of blue.

Recently laid sugar peas (the French “mange tout” variety) are raising tiny heads, and green beans should be coming through the soil one of these days. I sew lots of Swiss chard. I planted some pre-grown chard, planted salads, celery and beetroots. The cherry tree is netted against pigeons, starlings and other birds. The bananas are trimmed, the spring flower bulbs are taken out and stored away.

The tomatoes are coming out of the greenhouse soon, and our herbs are in full production already (minus the rosemary, which appears to struggle).

All we need now is a decent remainder of spring and a glorious summer.

 

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D.I.Y. Checkout

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DSCF8793I was invited to dinner at a friend’s house, so I stop at a supermarket on my way and get a bottle of white wine and some flowers. As it was Friday later afternoon, I am not alone in the store, and all checkouts have lengthy queues of customers with their weekly shopping.

Aarg, methinks, should I wait 20 minutes just to pay for these two items, and be late for dinner on top of it?

Reluctantly, I marched along the aisles until I come to the self check-out counters.

Scan your first item, the machine tells me. Bunch of roses, OK.

The next item is of course the wine, which sends the machine into red alert, asking to seek an assistant. Said assistant doesn’t get my humour when I ask her to confirm that my age exceeds 18 (or 21, or whatever else is required to buy a bottle of regular white wine in California). A couple of paranoid questions for date of birth and picture ID later, I am finally permitted to make my purchase and give them my money.

I have always disliked these machines, and it’s not getting better. They want my money, so they should better make an effort to take it. I’ll be at the Hi how are ‘ya and Do you need help with the packing and Would you need an extra bag for this checkout again next time.

 

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This Week, I’ve Been Mostly Eating…

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DSCF8808This week, I’ve been mostly eating welcome back home food:

Good old Spaghetti Bolognese for a simple yet rewarding meal on the day of returning home. On that day, I always need comfort food which doesn’t require much shopping or cooking effort so that I don’t fall asleep over it.

Deconstructed Spanakopita, in an attempt to mimic one of the dishes enjoyed at Dio Deka. A partial success; the flavour was there, but the tiny filo pastry cones burst open. I guess I put in too much filling, and should have used three filo pastry layers rather than two. A filo pastry wrapped lamb wellington with a tangy lemon zest and jalapeno pepper layer – very nice in theory, but I overdid the lamb, and it wasn’t the most tender piece to begin with. All followed by Pudim Flan.

Split pea and mint soup, followed by slow-roasted pork, served with cabbages and a cheese-free potato gratin, and concluded with a light version of bread and butter pudding – all at M&L’s house, thank you!

Green asparagus with hollandaise sauce, a poached egg, and crispy Italian ham. A light meal, since we had a late pub lunch on that day already.

Vegetable hot pot with seared duck breast and a sampler of freshly made Bratwurst sausages. Just the right thing for this cool and grey May Holiday.

 

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Quicksilver Trails

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Californian-PoppiesA new day, a new California State Park: This time, the Almaden Quicksilver County Park. Owing to sore thighs from the previous day of kayaking, I chose a small round trip of approximately 6km, but it had all I could ask for, and more:

First, the approach: drive south through San Jose on Almaden Expressway, then turn off into Almaden Road, following signs to New Almaden. It’s Silicon Valley at first with 4 lanes each direction, then a small town, and all of the sudden it’s rural California. Just like so. It’s astounding.

At the Hacienda Entrance, I found ample and free car parking space, a couple of shaded benches, and the usual information board with maps and warnings of poison oak, mountain lions and bobcats. My 6km hike through the park took me through the most beautiful landscape, and across the occasional reminder of the mining past: the area used to be one of the richest quicksilver mines of the world, owing to the high concentration of mercury in the bright red local cinnabar. Until the 1920s, this mercury was mostly used to extract gold from ore, and enabled the Californian gold rush.

The trail also featured some of the steepest inclines I have ever walked; in comparison, the way out of the Poverty Flats in the Henry Coe State Park is almost a walk in the park. Thankfully, those in the Almaden Quicksilver Park were pretty short, as I begun to feel my sore thighs at that point.

I was glad that I chose this short loop, but was even happier that I did get out there in the first place. I didn’t see any landbound animals, but birds of prey, and flowers everywhere. The bright orange Californian Poppy and some tall yellow flowers similar to Rapeseed brightened my hike and my day.

On my way out, I stopped at the Quicksilver Mining Museum, where a friendly and most enthusiastic park ranger talked me through the collection and answered most of my question. Free of charge, friendly, with a smile and an if there is anything else… Wonderful. US park rangers are always super.

The only question the ranger left unanswered was about the etymology of the word quicksilver itself. I find the similarity with the German Quecksilber startling, and wondered if quicksilver is an anglicised version of the German word. One Internet source claims the roots go back much further, reporting a common root in the Middle English quyksilver, from Old English cwicseolfor.

 

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This Week, I’ve Been Mostly Eating…

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Athens-Acropolis…this week, I’ve been mostly eating lunches with friends from work, and hotel room cuisine.

The lunches are actually great; there’s an abundance of places in the area, offering complete lunches, often for less than $10. Cambodian, Vietnamese, Tex-Mex, Thai (and Thai, and Thai again), some American diner-style places, Indian, you name it, and it is within minutes’ driving. So, lunches in Silicon Valley are great. Hotel room cuisine mostly features variations of salads with greens, poached eggs, ham, cheese, tomato – always nice, and I particularly enjoy the lighter option, given that we eat out for lunch every day.

Here are two highlights that stand out from the rest of this past week’s meals:

Fresh Vietnamese spring rolls with a satay sauce, followed by slow-roasted Duck with sticky rice and salad, crowned with an American classic: pineapple upside-down cake. Thanks, Linda!

We also went to dine at Dio Deka in Los Gatos, which appears to have gotten its first Michelin star last year. I have never had Greek food as delicious, and as appealingly presented, as this. Bravo!

My friend had the most beautiful Spanakotiropita, a variation of the classic Greek spinach tarte, for starters: little crispy filo pastry cones, filled with feta cheese, goats cheese and nuts, served on top of baby spinach. For myself, I couldn’t resist the Glykadakia, “chicken fried” lamb sweetbreads with a spicy breadcrumb, jalapeno pepper and lemon zest crust, served with a spicy feta dip. I couldn’t determine what “chicken fried” meant, but they were delicious.

For the main course, my friend enjoyed a stunning and delicious portion of Solomos, a wafer-thin slice of Ouzo-cured wild salmon, dressed with a spring garden made from fresh beans, radishes, wild fennel, and creme fraiche. I ate the most delicious portion of baby Kalamari that I ever tasted – not coated in batter, but touched with a hint of batter just enough to crisp the squid, and served with a delicious salsa maro, pickled ramps, sea beans and fava beans. I could only work out some of those ingredients, but I shall be trying. This was really delicious.

Washed down with a Sauvignon Blanc, and no room left for puddings.

I can’t recall having dined at a Michelin starred restaurant before. The last time we were at Dio Deka, a few years back, it wasn’t half as good and twice as arrogant. A superb move through and through, and I surely plan to come back.

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A Clever Bird

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DSCF3606I went kayaking on the Elkhorn Slough at Moss Landing, just a little north of Monterey, on the weekend. $30 for an all-day boat rental, inclusive of wetsuit, windbreaker and life jacket at Monterey Kayaks; you really can’t ask for a better deal.

The inlet was heaving with seals, otters, sea lions, and their pups, and the whole thing was good fun and superb value for money in spite of a strong tide pushing in, and a strong breeze freshening up during the cause of the day. This makes the first part of the journey really easy, but it turned out to be a good workout coming back. A good thing that I followed the advise of the rental guys and didn’t take too far up on the inlet.

Amidst the sea mammals, the inlet if crowded with birds. Geese, ducks, pelicans, herons, all kinds of water birds, and of course seagulls. In the end, I found myself watching a seagull more than anything, because the bird had discovered a clever hunting strategy:

I sat adrift and enjoyed my sandwich, watching a mother otter and her pup diving for mussels, and suspiciously eyeing the seagull from the corner of my eye. As it turned out, this particular seagull had no interest in my delicious sandwich. Instead, the bird was watching the otters just like I did, but with different intentions.

I don’t think the young otter got any mussels, but back on the surface, the mother opens up some and shares her catch – it’s the cutest thing to watch.

Enter the seagull.

She hassles the otters until they give up and dive away, while dropping their catch. The seagull dives, and enjoys a nutritious shellfish meal.

Clever, ey?

You want to hate the bird, because the bird is nasty and the otters are cute, but I couldn’t help admiring the strategy.

 

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Your Numbers, Front And Back

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DSCF8635Here’s a real-life surprise observation from the land of the superlatives:

When I stepped out of my car two nights ago, I noticed I have no front number plate! The rear number plate, which also contains the tax disc (or some other official sticker) is still there, but I was worried that I’d get a ticket over night, as the police sometimes drives around in the hotel car park.

No ticket in the morning, so I make my way to work, planning to phone the car rental company and seek advise. On my short way in (it’s only a few minutes in clear traffic), I counted no less than seven cars without front number plates, driving into the opposite direction! And these were only those that I saw, and only within those 10 minutes, on a short stretch of Hamilton Avenue.

Hmmm, methinks, this doesn’t seem to be a very severe offense.

I’ve given up counting now, but have seen many more cars with backside numbers only.

When I checked with a colleague before phoning the car rental company, he confirmed that many people couldn’t be bothered, and that he knows of nobody who ever got a ticket because of it. I just left it at that then.

I find this very surprising though. Most people around here appear to be observing signs and directions slavishly, but red traffic lights or front number plates seem to be an exception and do not seem to apply to everyone.

 

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This Week, I’ve Been Mostly Eating…

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DSC_0734Tonight, in my dreams, I’ve been mostly cooking BBQ pork which ended up too dry, mushrooms which ended up mushy, potato mash, lumpy and without grainy mustard. All under mediocre circumstances in the middle of our barn conversion project, using a 1930’s kitchen as found from the previous owners. A real uphill struggle in terms of equipment and space! I think the fact that Claire Hutchings was helping out in the kitchen, and the guests included our architect, the prime minister, and somebody else of import I forgot, didn’t help to settle my nerves. But, I managed nice bows of cucumber and beetroot for decoration, it was a charity affair after all…

Real life cooking hasn’t been half as exciting, but then, some of the meals prepared in real life actually went according to plan. Without Claire, David Cameron, or the forgotten but equally important person:

Filet of Salmon, steamed under a cover of fennel shavings and dill, served with steamed white rice, and finished with fresh Vanilla ice cream and toffee apples.

A Saturday night affair, starting with essence of tomato shots served with fresh sourdough bread. Starters of grilled peppers stuffed with spicy feta cheese spread and spinach and blue cheese filo parcels, served with a light green salad. A sage-infused juicy roast shoulder of pork, served with apples and rhubarb, and fennel-infused pommes dauphinoise. A fully-blown Black Forest Gateaux for desert.

A chicken and mushroom fricassee, lacking flavour and bite, served with a grainy mustard potato mash lacking said mustard, and leaks, all courtesy of Virgin Atlantic. They claim to serve gourmet food, but they must have located a really strange gourmet to bolster that claim. However, I’ve also eaten a lot worse in aeroplanes.

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The Impossible Defence

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DSC_0764How on earth would anyone defend Anders Breivik, the Norwegian serial killer?

It is good and just that he is allowed a defender (actually, he’s got four), and it is good that he is allowed to speak out in his own defence, however disturbing his testimony might be.

However, if you were his lawyer, how on earth would you argue in your plaidoyer?

I don’t think insanity, or being influenced and misguided in some way, can explain or excuse the fact that he carefully planned and executed the killing of 77 people, with his only regrets being now that he didn’t kill more.

I suppose your task as a defender is to ensure that he gets a fair trial, to make sure that he’s been given the benefit of the doubt where applicable, to make sure judges and jury see the case from all sides, and that he is not given a sentence harsher than appropriate.

The mind boggles.

 

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Fruits of My Labour

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polluxHere are the first fruits of my labour: at long last, the W7 Petcam is live! You can see it right here, in the right side bar of the main page.

The view isn’t great because the boys are under a reflecting acrylic sheet to keep them dry. I’ll think of something, maybe move the camera. I have now thought of something, and moved the camera. You can now look them into the eye, if they happen to look into yours.

For now, I am pleased with the current state of affairs.

You can manually refresh the image, or switch to Auto mode. In auto mode, the image refreshes automatically every few seconds, but the longer you watch, the slower it gets. You can’t make it bigger or change to live video, however. This is designed on purpose to preserve my Internet bandwidth.

Castor and Pollux say “hi.”
Enjoy.

A Standing Ovation

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2011-01-03 009After a brief excursion into the world of the whacky and hopeless, I return to play with the big boys. I play a lot with Microsoft during paid time, so this is one good reason to look elsewhere in my spare time, and begin learning Adobe Flex 4.6.

Boy. Man. Cheeses. They must have some sense of an uphill struggle against Microsoft, and they must have thought that developers out there need any help they can possibly get to adopt this exciting platform. What an inspired idea! I am flabbergasted. The introductory PDF alone is a mere 2574 well-written pages (free download). There’s a week’s worth of reasonably well-made video training and exercises right here, and tons after tons of good documentation, dictionaries, tutorials, you-name-it, an inexpensive but well made development tool, … I am impressed. Seriously impressed. Just go to the Adobe Developer Connection and find out for yourself.

It’s very hard to beat Microsoft’s .NET platform on any account, but I am amazed to see how far (and close) Adobe has got. In many ways, they are way ahead of .NET (like, in terms of target platform support). Looking at the documentation alone, it comes at no surprise that the fringe, including, but by no means limited to, Runtime Revolution’s LiveCode, stand no chance in real life.

I can see room at the fringes for specialised exotics such as MIT’s Scratch (programming for kids), Processing (2D and 3D animation) and many others, but it’ll take some real innovative punch to break into the market with a new general purpose language such as LiveCode.

I have always thought it is those hopeless souls that need most attention, as they harbour most novel and exciting ideas. It is sad, in a way, that the world of software engineering appears to be governed by a few big players, but as it happens, this is the rightfully earned case.

 

 

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