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January 30, 2006

Churros and Yonkers

Work and cooking experiments have been interfering with blogging time lately -- this always seems to happen right when my traffic spikes. Sorry to disappoint you, potiential Blue Sage addicts: it's for your own good.

Anyway, because I may not get around to decent descriptions of recent escapades, here's a recap:

We went to YONKERS. Have you been to Yonkers? The whole town (is it a town?) is built on a cliff. You look up, and there's another house 100 feet up above the one you're next to, and both houses have turrets and stone walls and look a bit like suburban castles. It was quite an adventure just to drive up there (thanks, Nick, for the ride).

We made CHURROS. It was very spontaneous. I became addicted to churros con chocolate on a foreign exchange program in 7th grade that made me a pathetic blob of homesickness. I don't think I quite appreciated the weight of culture shock before I signed up, but the churros saved me. My God, the churros on the corner were good. My Spanish family -- desperate to bring normalcy back to their household -- bought me plenty and joked for years about how I was a blubbering mess but I loved the churros. Anyway, Derek picked up some spanish hot chocolate mix for me for Christmas, and it tasted EXACTLY like the churro chocolate. I mentioned this and poof, Derek found a churros recipe online and dug out the cookie press and we made them. We only had olive oil, and the cookie press didn't have quite the right tip so they were a bit oily, but we ate them anyway. It's funny, when my Spanish sister came over to the U.S. one time, she came equipped with the churro maker and recipe and we tried to make them, but to no avail. The batter just turned into liquid in the oil. I never thought I'd be able to make the real thing -- I kind of assumed I'd have to go back to Santander, but no! Anything is possible with the internet.

Now I feel better. I may be silent for a while more since we're heading to Boston (what do people do in Boston, anway?) for work and a long weekend.

Posted by csageday at 11:04 PM | Comments (3)

Scheherazade Casserole

The original Moosewood Cookbook (1977) has mythic stature in my mind as far as vegetarian cookbooks are concerned. It is entirely handwritten and gets rave reviews from everyone I know who uses it. Since it wasn't readily available (stores sell various iterations, but I don't think the original, handwritten version is being printed anymore), even at the Coop, it became one of those things I always wanted to find but never got around to tracking down. Finally, I passed the grunt work on to Derek and asked for it for Christmas. It worked: I now own the 15th Anniversary reprint (1992), which sticks to the original but is revised to be a bit healther. Now, if I were still a vegetarian (and as much as I say I try to be, I just caved and had a turkey sandwich today so I'm hardly sticking to it), I could join the ranks of serious vegetarians by cooking lentil bulgar and stuffed squash and samosas from scratch.

I spent an afternoon flipping through it just to get a feel for what the signature dishes are. Odessa beets seem like a favorite, though I'm not big on shredded vegetables. A lot of recipes in the book seem like the classic vegetarian dishes that I love -- possibly because this book was a trailblazer. Many have roots in middle eastern food -- there's eggplant dip, cucumber yogurt sauce, spanakopita, stuffed grape leaves. There are also Asian-style peanut sauces and stir frys, and standard Italian dishes. A lot of my favorite things are in here: ricotta gnocchi, eggplant parmesan, banana bread, carrot bread, vegetarian chili.

To kick off my Moosewood cooking career with a bang, I made Scheherazade Casserole first, even though I didn't have a really firm idea about what the final product might look or taste like. The introduction starts with this: "This is one of my favorite recipes, and I strongly recommend it: ground soybeans baked with bulgar, vegetables, garlic, tomatoes, feta cheese. The texture is deeply satisfying, and the seasonings are bold. It tastes great!" It also has a completely insane list of ingredients, one of which involves prepping the night before (soaking the soybeans, something I'd never done before). Here's a simplified list:

• soaked soybeans
• bulgar
• feta cheese
• tomatoes
• peppers, garlic and lots of onions
• cumin and cayenne

These were gradually rendered into a huge reddish pile of mush which barely fit into our largest bowl. I was a little skeptical, but I just had a bite and it's wonderful. It tastes like a hearty Italian dish -- the feta really pulls it together and makes it seem decadent. I almost wish I weren't heading to Boston Thursday -- there's not way we'll finish it by then -- maybe I'll freeze half of it now. The recipe made enough for several weeks.

By the way, anyone know the origin of "scheherazade"? I could Google it, but I'm lazy.

Posted by csageday at 10:41 PM | Comments (2)

January 23, 2006

Happy Birthday Blue Sage

Today marks the one year anniversary of Blue Sage. I was going to do a little retrospective but I'm feeling lazy (I also frittered away all of my blogging time looking at the 2006 Bloggies). So it'll have to wait. Thanks to everyone who reads this and thank you especially to those of you that comment! It's been a pleasure to have this as an outlet for things that otherwise clog up my brain. It's wonderful to know that a few people read it, too!

Update: Wow, I share the same blogiversary date with The Yarn Harlot. Only she's much more eloquent about anniversaries.

Posted by csageday at 10:14 PM | Comments (4)

January 22, 2006

Ice Skating

On Saturday, when it was absurdly warm for a January day, Derek and I went ice skating at the Wollman Rink in Prospect Park. The Wollman Rink is so retro it could easily be converted into a Williamsburg themed-bar-of-the-moment. The architecture is from the 60s, and the snack bar really doesn't seem to have changed much since it opened. There's fabulous greasy food -- fries, pizza, hot dogs, etc. -- and of course, there's a "party room" for kids' birthday parties (there's always one going on). The rental area and the lockers and the picnic tables look exactly like the ones that would have been at any ice skating rink in the 80s. I always have a range of childhood flashbacks when I go there. The gazillion 8-10 year-old kids running around probably has something to do with this.

We stood in line, got crappy rental skates, and then joined throngs of skaters of all levels in circling around and around the ice. At first, it took a little courage to cross over from the rubber floor to the ice at the edge of the rink (if you haven't skated in a while you'll be a bit wobbly, especially if you are a grown-up) but it's so much fun once you get going. It's like Frogger -- the ice is packed with people who might fall on their faces at any moment or skate right in front of you, so you have to maneuver your way around. Various pop classics (Elton John, songs from Grease) play on the speakers, and little girls in various figure skating outfits abound. It's like morphing back to your life as an eight-year-old for a few hours, only when the Zamboni comes on and you get to go to the snack bar, you can buy whatever you want.

Posted by csageday at 10:13 PM | Comments (1)

January 21, 2006

Starbucks Virgin

Yesterday, for the first time in years, I ventured into a Starbucks. I recently switched buildings at work. At the old building, we got free Starbucks coffee; at the new one, we don't. While I've never liked Starbucks coffee (too dark) from the store, the House Blend they had at the old building was perfect.

I usually get desperate for coffee -- specifically, the old-building coffee -- around 3pm. Substitutes like soda, tea, or chocolate just don't cut it. So after lunch yesterday I decided to do the previously unthinkable: buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I've boycotted the place for years (except in the case of a severe hot chocolate craving), because it's expensive, not independent, lame, neighborhood-wrecking, and not fair-trade. But this was an emergency.

So I walk into the store, walk up to the register, and realize I have no idea how to order a regular cup of coffee at Starbucks. The menu is way too complicated to make any sense of in a few seconds, and I can't find plain old coffee. I've never learned the latte-skim-double-grande-soy-tall language everyone else uses. It's so familiar that people make jokes about it, but I can't seem to figure out how to say "small coffee with milk". So I stutter:

Me (cautious): "Can I just get a regular coffee?"

The barrista looks perplexed, then she smiles like she thinks it's funny.

Barrista: "Um, [smile], what do you mean?"

I don't find this funny. How can the biggest coffee chain in history not understand this simple request?

Me (realizing I need to specificy a size, but only remembering "grande", which can't be small): "A small coffee with milk?" I gesture with hands while saying this, as if there's some sort of language barrier and she won't understand "small."

Barrista (really smiling now): Okay, one [small coffee in Starbucks language].

She comes back with the coffee and starts babbling about steamed milk, like she wants to impart some Starbucks knowledge to me so I won't be such an embarrassment to the Starbucks institution next time I come in. Maybe she things I'm from the midwest or Sweden.

Barrista: "mumble mumble milk."

Me: "What?"

Barrista: "You can get milk over there. If you order milk at the counter you can get steamed milk."

Me: "Um, okay..."

Barrista: "Steamed milk takes longer and costs more."

Me: (nodding, like I might possibly order steamed milk next time ...) "Okay, thanks."

Did she really think I meant steamed milk? Was she trying to imply that Starbucks isn't really the place for regular coffee, but really meant for higher forms of the art, like cappucchino and latte? As if this weren't completely obvious by all of the hissing and steaming and snobbery behind the counter?

I think about it again -- maybe she wants to warn me, the innocent Starbucks virgin, of the high Starbucks cost of coffee? I decide to look at the register display: $1.77. I want to say out loud: "It costs MORE?!?" but keep my mouth shut.

I realize Starbucks must price the normal cup of coffee this way to discourage people from buying it -- it's not a wallet-friendly or morning-friendly price. 77 cents!? That involves pennies and calculation and is just obnoxious.

I feel slightly condescended to in some way -- it seems like no one in the history of the store may ever have come in NOT knowing the Starbucks ordering language before. I slink away to the milk counter and leave, feeling as if the barrista might be watching me as I went out the door.

Oh, and the coffee was terrible.

Posted by csageday at 01:45 PM | Comments (5)

Cake!

Xander turned one last month, and celebrated appropriately.

To be fair, he was egged on by several adult relatives to do this -- he was really adamant in the beginning about using the fork and all, since he's ONE now, you know. We think he liked it, though.

Posted by csageday at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

Bogota

One of the advantages of having a blog is the ability to rant about bad service at restaurant and hope that maybe some restaurant owner will stumble across it and feel a twinge of guilt (highly unlikely, but still a comforting though while you're fuming at your table).

A month or so ago, when it was absolutely freezing cold, we ended up at Bogota (at 5th Ave and St. John's) with some friends. We went there for drinks and found a friendly bartender and all sorts of nutty cocktail choices. There were fruity mojitos (just stick with the plain kind, which is the best) and other Colombian mixed drinks involving guava and coconut and mango. There were also interesting beer combinations -- there was spicy beer, which involved tabasco and burned your lips, and someone ordered a Colombian specialty: a glass half full of beer and half full of vanilla soda, which is exactly what it tasted like. Overall, it was fun and D and I promised ourselves we'd come back for the food, which looked tempting.

So last night, we did. And I have to admit that I was exhausted and cranky after a long week and just really wanted a good drink and good food and sleep. I was also hoping we'd find a great new place to eat, so maybe my expectations were too high. It was packed and I got there first, so I ordered the Bogota Especial -- a rum cocktail with banana liquor and fruit juices. It would have been fine, but something was a little off with the alcohol -- it tasted like vodka was used where rum should have been, and it was kind of harsh.

Derek arrived and we sat down at a table. Now, for a Friday night, I understand if it takes a while to order. So I tried to be patient, but it felt like eons went by, and other people who came in at the same time started getting food (or at least it seemed that way), and we still hadn't gotten to order. My alcohol wasn't dealing with my accumulated stress from the week, either, so I started getting obsessed with the service. I saw two waitstaff people talking to people at tables nearby and started to feel jealous, and of course once you get into that line of thinking it's hard to quit. The time started to drag, I was getting hungry, and I couldn't make eye contact with any staff at all. Derek found this all very amusing. Eventually, I asked him for the time and figured we'd been waiting for 25 minutes (D said 20), which is, even by a non cranky person's standards, too long. So my efforts to get attention were doubled, and I started trying to convince Derek we should just leave so we could get some food somewhere else. Finally a waiter came within earshot and my inner nasty person came out and said, rather loudly and well within earshot of diners nearby, "Can we PLEASE ORDER?!?"

So finally, there's the food. I ordered an arepa with avocado salad, which was okay but not terribly interesting. D had corn-on-the-cob with chipotle mayo and queso blanco ("it was okay"). Next D had a cuban sandwich which was "great", and I had chuletas -- pork chops. The chops were a little dry through the flavor was good, and I missed the usual accompaniment of applesauce. I really liked the special side, though: a sweet potato mash with plantains and some other stuff -- I probably would have been fine just eating that, since I couldn't finish half the food on my plate (it came with rice and beans). It was yummy. Derek also said his Mojito tasted a little harsh, possibly just because of the type of rum used and the amount of it (too much).

Our waiter apologized for the delay and checked up on us regularly after we finally ordered, so I felt better about things later on. We also got some free chips with guacamole. We'll probably go again to explore other menu options, but just not on a Friday.

Posted by csageday at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

January 17, 2006

Adventures in Food, Continued

Did you know that you can make lentil soup exactly the same way you make pea soup? I used the leftover carrots and slightly-limp celery and non-homemade vegetable stock and substituted whole lentils for split peas and came up with passable lentil soup in about an hour. It wasn't fabulous, though. It needed something. So I added a can of tomatoes, per Joy. Eh. Perfectly edible soup, yet, but nothing to write home about. I think I need a spice. I love the lentil soup you get in mediterranean restaurants -- slightly spicy, smooth, somewhat pureed, with a lighter color? I have to pull out the mediterranean cookbook...(hold please)...okay, the mediterranean cookbook doesn't even have lentil soup, but the slow cooker book has Moroccan Style Lentil and Chic Pea soup - that involves similar ingredients plus turmeric and cardamon and cinnamon and a bunch of other spices. Might be worth a try.

Next adventure: Fish. I like fish stores. They're so retro. Fishmonger is a great word. I just don't know what to do with fish. I can handle shrimp (with Dad on the phone coaching), and I can get sardines out of a can, but that's where it ends. I've tried tuna -- I think it was okay, but now I'm afraid of all the mercury so I reserve my tuna binges for New York Rolls at Yamato once in a while (ooohsogoood). Right, so, the other night I was walking past the fish store (which is half a block away from the other fish store in the neighborhood -- which one should I go to??) and I decided that it would be really cool if I just walked in and ordered a fillet of something, like a grown-up.

So I walk in and am confronted with 100 different kinds of fish. There's trout, bluefish, halibut, tuna, gray sole, lemon sole, cod, etc. All of my fish knowledge leaves me. Five store people ask if I need help and I have to pretend I'm still thinking. There's a beautiful red snapper, but it's expensive and a whole fish seems like a bit of a challenge. I suddenly can't remember whether my Spanish Mom always made haddock or halibut. Finally, the only thing in my head is: Mom gets sole, just get the sole. Only there are two kinds of sole, gray and lemon. I hope that maybe the lemon sole is pre-flavored or something. I ask. The fish guy is not so good with English, so I repeat myself and realize at the same time that this is a neophyte kind of question. The fish guy smiles. No. Lemon sole has nothing to do with lemon. Oy. So how is it different, I ask. Less expensive, he says. Okay, whatever, I've had enough fish store embarrassment for a day. I get a fillet.

At home, Joy really doesn't have much advice for me. Sautéeing is good for sole. Grill is best. Ugh. So I sautée, but I do it in the Le Creuset, which is really not the best pan because it's for evenly distributed heat, not high, fish-browning heat. I cook the fish in olive oil, slather it with lemon, salt, pepper, and parsley, and it is edible. Derek said it wasn't bad. I was not impressed. I really should have consulted the internet or Mom -- here's a decent recipe that I could have tried. Anyway, to summarize, it has not been a successful week in Blue Sage Food. Not as bad as the Failed Fudge, but not up to my foodie wannabe standards.

Update: The Amateur Gourmet has done an anniversary food post and it's full of things to try.

Posted by csageday at 10:51 PM | Comments (1)

January 16, 2006

The Year in Cities 2005

Following Kottke's lead (since I have the day off and am wasting it away in front of the computer), here's a list of cities I visited in 2005.

Overnight Trips
New York, NY
Minerva, NY
Cape Cod, MA
West Orange, NJ
Wilmington, DE
Zihuatanejo, Mexico
Patzcuaro, Mexico
Concord, NH
Orlando, FL

Day Trips
Palisades, NY
Jersey City, NJ
Burlington, VT
Norwalk, CT
Mantoloking, NJ

Things I skipped: A ski trip (although I did try cross country skiing and iceboating) and trips to Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco (all trips I thought about making but didn't get around to). This year, hopefully we'll fit a trip to Eurpoe in (D and I promised each other a trip for Christmas).

I always feel like I'm itching to travel and when I first started making this list I kept thinking of places we didn't go -- places I'd meant to take a weekend trip to, like Boston. This list is also making me realize that I have to credit the interesting trips -- to Mexico and Florida -- to Derek's family. I haven't done much organizing on my own -- very lazy of me -- so I should get off my arse and see if I can get something together for President's Day.

Posted by csageday at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

Baby Xander

We were lucky enough to have nephew Xander all to ourselves Saturday afternoon, and we had a ball ... he loves exploring and testing things out. Balls of yarn, things that make noise or rattle, cork coasters, and our retro globe-style lighting fixtures were a hit (he thought they were balloons and kept pointing at them). Even though we were just playing around the whole time, we were exhausted about 20 minutes in, and my arms are still sore from carrying him around. I have a new appreciation for the job of parenting a kid full time. It's just completely insane. I'm not sure how new parents function at all. Well, actually, I do -- because I'd babysit again in a second -- he's just amazing (for photographic proof of Xander's uber-cuteness, see additional photos on Flickr).

Posted by csageday at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2006

Roosevelt Island Subway Stop

I tend to have subway accidents when I'm tired or inebriated. Either I miss Jay street on the A and have to endure a 12-minute non-stop express ride to Bed Sty, or I forget to transfer to the F from the B or D and end up at Pacific Street. I endure these lapses of consciousness nonchalantly, pretending to purposefully travel 20 minutes out of the way. I usually notice just as the doors are closing at my transfer stops, but god forbid I should curse and run to a closing door at the last minute -- no, one must read one's New Yorker as if nothing has happened and get off at the next stop, even if it's 12 minutes away and means you'll be waiting 20 minutes for a train to take you back.

This happened to me on Friday, because I had a wee bit of beer and was exhausted, and was paying too much attention to my new camera to notice that the train I was getting on was going uptown, not down (it wasn't my usual station). Since I was still obsessing about the camera at the next stop, I didn't notice my mistake until I was at a completely unfamiliar station: Roosevelt Island. It felt like my train had suddenly beamed itself to Washington D.C. or Staten Island. The station is full of chrome and is devoid of the usual tile. I got off and found myself in an echoey, nearly empty station, and since I was feeling creative (beer does that), I took some pictures.

I have yet to get to the actual island (we're planning to do that sometime soon since we know some people who live there), but this is a start.

Update: Here's a little history on the station.

Posted by csageday at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2006

Swan Lake

If you ever have the chance to see Wendy Whelan dance a ballet, please take it. We saw Swan Lake (NYT Review, photo, NYCB schedule) on Tuesday and she was breathtaking as Odette. She was extremely swan-like, floating over the stage with smooth, fluttering arms and perfect form. The scenes with a stage-full of swans are also mesmerizing -- the dancers weave in and out of formation, moving together and then gracefully breaking off to form undulating patterns and sad nocturnal dances (the story involves an evil sorcerer who turns women to swans --they become human again at night and dance in the woods). Derek was also very taken with Tschaikovsky's score. It shifts quite a bit between upbeat, fast tempos and slower music (there's a harp to accompany the swans), and seems to have inspired a great many movies scores (Harry Potter most recently, perhaps).

Posted by csageday at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2006

New Year's Resolution Update

Miracle of miracles, we managed to avoid eating dinner at a restaurant unless absolutely necessary last week. Instead, I've been making great use of the Le Creuset pots Derek got me for my birthday.

First, I tried a vegetable frittata with the skillet. That was decent, but not fluffy enough for my taste. I think I need to beat the egg whites or add cream. I started with onions, added green veggies and some Italian-deli marinated artichoke (possibly my favorite vegetable), poured in the egg and cooked until firm on the bottom, sprinkled with parmesan cheese and cooked in the oven. In no cookbook did it say to add parmesan cheese, but I remember a friend doing this and it definitely helped.

Next, I made a 50s style casserole for the folks at home (adding sherry to the mushroom-sautée step helps), and a beet and mandarin orange salad that I love (and cannot find the recipe for, but all it has are cubed cooked beets, mandarin oranges from the can, salt, minced garlic and olive oil). Finally, I made pea soup, twice. Once in New Jersey in a stock pot (takes decades), and once here in the dutch oven (only take a few hours). It takes time, but it's so easy -- just throw a quart of vegetable stock and a quart of water together with 1 lb. of split peas, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, an onion, a bay leaf, marjoram, and some diced ham (you can leave this out, but I haven't found a great substitute yet). Let simmer until it looks like pea soup. Voila.

Posted by csageday at 11:30 PM | Comments (2)

January 08, 2006

The Canon and the Coop

I got a few photos of the Park Slope Food Coop today with the Canon. (I still haven't uploaded the photos of Xander on his first birthday -- I'll do that soon). I love the Coop, since it's full of good food and nice people and it's the opposite of a big box store. Someone took a bunch of good photos of the displays there a while ago. I tried my hand at it, but I have a long way to go in understanding how to get the most from the Canon. It can store an incredible amount of detail, but in order to get the shot I want I have to learn how to play with a bunch of settings. The lighting in the Coop always seemed warm to me in person, but it created glare in the photos. My standard approach of turning off the flash and balancing the camera on the nearest shelf is not the best method of achieving good color, either. Still, it was fun to try and I am very pleased with the clarity and quick response. Can't wait to spend the day in Prospect Park with it when it's sunny.

Posted by csageday at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)

Football Season

Half the country is currently obsessed with watching men in tights and shoulderpads run five feet and then get jumped on by 10 other men in tights and shoulderpads. On TV. Why?? It seems like the most silly and frustrating thing to watch. Every once in a while the ball gets thrown, but half the time it's not even caught. It's painfull, too. I just watched a play where a bunch of players got up and walked away but one guy looked dead. He was just lying there on the field, completely immobile, but no one looked concerned because, in football, this is normal. I've heard horror stories about players writhing in agony because of a broken limb. To support all of this carnage, entire teams of medical staff stand on the sidelines, ready to provide hospital-grade treatment. I've always found it odd to see a player standing on the sidelines hooked up to an IV (this is not unusual). Doesn't that seem a little strange? Like maybe he should be in the hospital, and not getting ready to go back into a game that resembles human bumper cars?

Did I mention that these games also take place in the middle of winter, when it's freezing cold? And thousands of fans volunteer to sit in the cold for hours to watch them?

And the coaching staff acts like the executive staff of a major bank. It's all corporate on on the sidelines. Manager types run around with headsets and clipboards and have entourages of support staff. During non-game-days, they work in office complexes and communicate with email and use complicated software. Some of them wear suits. Given the outfits of the players and the pointlessness of the game, I think they're all taking themselves way too seriously.

There's lots of technology, too -- football seems to be way ahead of baseball in this regard. Referees get to watch replays on little TVs and I think some of the football players have wired helmets. Even the TV networks broadcasting the games are more advanced -- they broadcast in high definition (my brother Nick and Derek were glued to Nick's new HD TV screen yesterday) and have yellow lines superimposed on the field to indicate something or other about the next "down". It all seems slightly distasteful, like they're trying to compensate for the silliness of the game with expensive widgets and fancy TV graphics.

Derek and my brother and father are all normal enough, but come football season they get mesmerized by the sport. Now that the Giants are in the playoffs, they're unavailable for four hours at a time while the games are on. If anything interesting happens and they're all watching the game together in New Jersey, there's this erruption of stomping and clapping and yelling -- and since they're all over six feet tall and rather wound up, the noise can be a little scary. I've done my part in trying to get enthusiastic about football, but I can rarely get engaged enough to figure out which team is the Giants (I sit there in front of the TV, dozing off, and get scared out of my mind when some football-obsessed family member starts making noise about some great play). So I'm going to take my new camera to the park today and leave Derek to his Giants game and hope they lose (sorry, guys) so I can see more of him in the coming weeks.

Posted by csageday at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2006

Another Post about Food

There is hope for a month (or some reasonable compromise of time) of home-cooked dinners. Last night, Derek made great vegetable cous cous (with a hint of curry) and tonight I made some lemony spinach with pine nuts and Derek made pasta. And I've just read The Amateur Gourmet's New Year's post, which includes a six course vegetarian meal, so I'm adding asparagus soup and corn fritters to my list of new things to make. Finally, a blog I've been reading lately has launched a food blog, so there's peer pressure (CK, that paella looks great. I'm jealous. I spent a year in Spain and didn't learn how to make a paella. How could I let that happen?)

Of course, it can't be THIS month because we went to the Lemongrass Grill on Sunday, Which reminds me: Did you know that Thai food isn't exactly light and healthy? I thought it was. I was looking for a light dinner to counteract all the Hob Nobs and hollandaise, so I picked Thai. I ordered steamed dumplings and pad thai, Derek ordered some veggie rolls and a curry coconut vegetable dish. It was all good (the pad thai was passable -- I probably should have gotten something more adventurous) but the servings were humungous and Derek's main course, though delicious, was pretty heavy because of the coconut milk involved. And then, of course, there's the obligatory Thai iced tea, which it really condensed milk with some tea at the bottom. I think I knew this about Thai food, but conveniently forgot it. Thought I'd share my little epiphany so you, too, can feel guilty when you eat Thai food.

Posted by csageday at 10:25 PM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2006

Post-Christmas Afflictions

As a result of our very successful trip to Chinatown for stocking presents, I am addicted to various Chinese candies and snack foods. Mainly "Haw Flakes" -- little paper-thin fruity sweet disks that stick to your teeth -- and "Jane-Jane Prepared Dried Shredded Squid." D, horrified by my squid munching, describes it as "something petrified and fishy and dead." He made me take it out of our bedroom so he wouldn't have nightmares about the smell. Also, I keep eating Hob Nobs just because we got about 15 cannisters of them and why not? I haven't even gotten to the Jacques Torres.

Oh, and Sudoku is addictive and bad. And, obviously, a huge time sink. You know it's bad if it keeps you up at night and then -- even though you left it at home on purpose to avoid wasting your entire commute on pointless puzzles -- you find yourself thinking about at work. What's worse is that I skipped ahead to a "difficult" puzzle, hoping to discover my inner Sudoku prodigy, and even though it took me ages to finish and was supremely frustrating, it has spoiled the easy stuff for me. My mother can no longer be mad at me for giving her Francis' Sit and Solve crosswords book (it destroyed a good chunk of time for her), since she gave me this damn Sudoku book. We're even now.

Posted by csageday at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Mad Cute Kids

We saw Mad Hot Ballroom last night -- the documentary about the annual elemetary-school-level ballroom dancing competition in NYC -- and loved it. Ten-year-olds can be so precocious. They're on the cusp of adolescence but resemble little adults more than teenagers (especially when they're ballroom dancing). They're self-assured and talk philosophically about life, love, and dance -- the director caught some great moments. It's so endearing that I kept interupting the movie to tell Derek how amazing the kids were. They make these serious grand pronouncements about life that just make you want to melt -- it's so sad and cute and true to that age. I'd forgotten what it was like to be 10 and feel so mature (and then have something crushing happen and cry and get all flustered).

Posted by csageday at 07:55 PM | Comments (0)