Day 158: I know.  I'm a terrible person.  My blogging has become fewer and farther between, and you, gentle reader, desire to know what I've been doing, and, selfishly, I've just been mum.

I'm a right bastard, as my British friends would say. 

HOWEVER, I'm going to bring you up to speed.

About six days ago, Thanksgiving happened.  I wanted to write a long post, thanking all of you, my dear friends for existing: Christie, Jeff, Lindsey, Charlie, Andrew, Sahar, Natalie, Natalie, Harjas, Elise, Lanna, Emily, Greg, Emily, Andy, Emily, Jim, (I know a lot of Emily's... back off, man!), Mindy, Thùy, Ericka, Rafi, Chris, Jen, Devin, Kathleen, Ashley, Todd, Tina, Troll, Courtney, Leslie, Patrick, Laura, Mook, Scott, Cheryl, Joe, Lolly, Michele, Autumn, Alethea, Soteria (and NOT SAMI), Charles, Tyson,  Bao, Wing, Sally, Curt, Amy, Ian, Ian, Andrea, Godzilla, Clare, Dudley, Gabrielle, Mike, Mike, Mike, Heather, Heather, Christopher, Shawn, Brett, Bobby, Ashley, Rhett, Rachel, Rachel, Lou, Anne, Eric, Martin, Rosie, Nina, Andrea, Sean, Amanda, Grant, Jason, Dean, Dawn, GoGo, Kim, Evan, Christy, Tom, Melissa, Jeff, Ashley, Jim, Kara, Jade, Megan, Dave, Heather, Marty, Mary Ellen, John, John, Marty, Adrienne, Julie, Ruthie, Lance, Lucy, Ian, Sue, Ann, Ed, Jim, Jan, Carolyn, Steve, Jess, Lily, Linda, Tracy, Betty, Ray, Grandma, Papa, Grandmother, Mom, and Dad

It's almost insane how many people I deeply love.

And because of that love, I bring you the greatest thing that has ever happened in your mouth.

Shallot Marmalade - Credit to Grant Achatz, Owner, Chef of Alinea in Chicago:

Two shallots, peeled, and diced fine
1/4 tbsp butter
3/4 cup water
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp sugar
pinch of kosher salt

Put all ingredients in a small skillet, and reduce until syrup.  Pour syrup onto a small saucer, and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Pumpkin Soup - Credit to Aunt Ann, who is amazing and neat and stuff:

2 cans Pumpkin
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 can Chicken Stock (substitute one can Vegetable Stock for a nearly-Vegan version)
1 Shallot, diced fine
Sour Cream to finish
Chives to finish

Put Olive Oil over med-high heat. 
Brown shallots for five minutes, stirring continuously.
Add Pumpkin, Stock. 
Cook through (about five minutes)

Serve in mugs:

Two ladels-full of pumpkin soup
One spoonful of Sour Cream
One teaspoon of diced chives
One forkful of Shallot Marmalade
Salt and Pepper to taste.  Season a little heavily

Put in face.

I love all of you, without reservation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We'll resume our normal blogging when we get back from the holidays!!

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 150: My 150th day in Sacramento is brought to you by the letter AWWWWWW....

You will recall, gentle reader, that about a week ago I drew a woman of a certain age who happened to be sitting near our table.

Tonight, I ran into her again, and she gave me this:

Day 148: The day was spent making art, which made me happy, and then making slightly less good art, which... it's a process.

However, I wanted to share with you a story that actually happened at last Monday night's trivia. 

I was describing St. Patrick (for some trivia-related reason), and was pantomiming.  The pantomime was as follows:

Hands, palms down, at roughly shoulder height, with my wrists as close to my shoulders as possible.
Fingers wiggling, moving hands slowly directly forward.

"You know," I said.  "The snakes."

Everyone stared at me.  "What snake moves like that?" I was asked by the entire table at once.

"No," I said, confused, "I'm not the snakes.  I'm St. Patrick.  I'm walking a whole lot of snakes on little leashes, tied to each finger."

...

Ooooobviously. 

I got mad hagiographic pantomime skillz.  Also, I'm the only one who wrote that sentence on the internet today.

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 147: Adventure.  It's what life is all about.

Every once in a while, I wander backwards into adventure that I wasn't even looking for, and it almost invariably involves R.  So, here's what happened:

A few months ago, R told me about an Opportunity.  He had access to this Opportunity because of his largesse (the man gives a sizable donation to NPR every year, and he is to be unreservedly commended for it!).  However, he was not going to be around to see it, as he was heading home for Thanksgiving.  I am staying here in the City of Trees (the actual nickname of Sacramento; for the record, I think there are more trees in the playground area of Sesquicentennial State Park than there are in this entire city), and so he asked if I would be interested in taking advantage of the Opportunity in his stead.  I admitted that I knew from experience that it was definitely my thing, and he set it all up.

MH and I arrived at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis around 6:20 p.m. (in researching this, I was pleased to learn that the center was named for a generous donation from the vintner Robert Mondavi, and then was saddened to learn that he passed in 2008).  The event was scheduled to start around 6, so we were "fashionably late."

We thought.

In fact, we were completely first.  After a bit of confusion about the tickets (there was more than one event at the center that night, apparently), we were ushered to the third floor, where the private reception was being held.  This featured truly remarkable food from Magpie, one of my favorite local restaurants, which is one of those "farm to table" places (which is why it's one of my favorites!).  After a bit, others began to join us, and MH encouraged me to use my social skills to just start meeting people.

I chat-bombed a group of people nearby, and they were very welcoming (hooray!) and super cool (bonus!) AND... I don't even know how to say this..

Every.

Single.

One.

Lives on my block.

...

To give you some context, my SC friends, this is like living on campus, going to a party at Lake Murray, and discovering that every person you talked to lives in your building.  It was trippy.

Most of them, awesomely enough, are actually employees of CPR.  Those that weren't were, I swear to god, a marketing exec at Electronic Arts, and a scientist doing stem-cell research.

I LOVE THIS TOWN.

Of course, eventually, the lights dimmed, alerting us that the Opportunity itself was starting.

MH and I laughed for two solid hours. 

I hope you all had wonderful Friday evenings, I hope the Gamecocks win tomorrow, I hope my recent birthday peeps feel sexy rather than old (you are sexy!), and, mostly, I hope you find adventure where you can, all the time.  Cultivating awesome friends helps, by the way.

Because once in a while, stuff lines up in a strange way, and, there you are, laughing your ass off with a good friend, watching NPR's David Sedaris explain--in excruciating, hilarious detail--his colonoscopy.
 
I shit you not.

...sorry, I couldn't help it.

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 146: Met up with EG&G after work at Burgers and Brew, a local eatery that... well, frankly, it's not my favorite place, but who cares when you're with your favorite people, right?  MH joined us after a bit, and we all toasted R, as it was his last night in town before his epic journey to the Midwest to celebrate Thanksgiving with the fam.

Looking back on my day, I realized that, yes, I had spent the entire day furiously typing out code while listening to the soundtracks from the Matrix movies.  My nerd quotient is really getting up there, I'm afraid.

On the other hand, I'm having a blast learning new tech here at work, as I've mentioned.  So when I saw "Developer Bootcamp" pop up on my calendar, I was super excited!!  I read through all of the materials that they linked in the bootcamp invitation, so that I would be prepared.  Two solid hours of DataStage fundamentals!  Hooray!

So I take my seat in the lecture hall, log in to my computer, and prepare to have my mind blown.

An older gentlemen approaches the lectern, and fires up his projector and logs in to his computer.  IT IS ON.

... and he spends two hours reading the documentation to us.

Wait, what?

Yes, he spent the training reading the material that I had already read.  The day before.

Gah.

Let me tell you something, gentle reader: if and when you would create a litmus test of boring, I submit that "having someone read you technical guides that you have just read" hits the mark pretty squarely.

Yes, yes, litmus tests don't hit marks, but we're not here to dwell on my metaphor mixology, now, are we? 

What's that?  We ARE??

Oh, heavens. 

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 145: R and I played Raquetball after work, which is a much more fun way to work out than a treadmill.  And, honestly, there's an artistry to the sport: 

The precision. 
The control. 
The occasional undignified flailing just before slamming oneself into a wall running as fast as one can. 

Didn't even hit the dang ball...

Dinner was burrata, basil, heirloom grape tomatoes, good vinegar and better olive oil, served alongside the wicked temptation that is Safeway's fried chicken.  It's not NEARLY as good as Zesto's fried chicken, but it's a lot closer to my apartment.

Also, I have finished The Twelve.  If you happen to run across Justin Cronin, and he is not writing, please remind him that I NEED MORE.

Same's true for Patrick Rothfuss, now that I think about it.

George RR Martin very much used to be in this same category, but, while A Dance with Dragons was head and shoulders above A Feast for Crows, the waits between books have just gotten to be ridiculous, and I've given up caring how the story ends.  I remember when the third book came out in 2000, and my British connections allowed me to score a copy before it was published in the US.  In the intervening 12 years, we've gotten a total of two more books.  Whee.  I could have written a whole series myself by now.

Hey, wait a second...

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)

Day 144: There is something special about a Bond movie, and Skyfall is no exception.  I'm not going to review it, but you should see it.  I saw it at the Esquire IMAX, and that theater is always just a bit of an adventure regardless of what you're seeing.  It's just such a grand old space, and the building has just wonderful lines.

THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT SKYFALL.  It's actually about how happy I am.  For some reason.

In point of fact, I spent most of today with a huge smile on my face.

I have a job that not a lot of people would enjoy, but there are days when I genuinely love it.  I get to play with computers and learn neat new technologies every day.  Here in California, I'm learning DataStage, which is a tool for moving and manipulating data.  It's very slick and fun.  It's kind of like someone gave me a paintbrush and said, "Okay, go nuts.  And we're going to pay you for this."  The sensation of genuinely enjoying what I do for a living is something I recognize as special.  I've known people my whole life who have worked at jobs that they hate.  I know that in a lot of cases there aren't a lot of other options, and that even the very worst job in the United States allows us to reach a standard of living far above most of the rest of world.  Having said that, I am quite pleased that I get genuine satisfaction from figuring out how to parse a string using the FIELD() function, or coming up with an elegant way to extrapolate an end date from the next begin date, or just thinking up a new way that I can break the thing I built, and then building it even stronger.

In other news, it's possible that I'm a gigantic nerd.

Ahem.

I leave my job, and head to hang out with friends, and go to see a good movie at a grand theater.  It was a pretty good day, I gotta say.

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 143: After a hard day at work, and a strenuous workout at the gym (I'm bulkin' up!  BEEFCAKE!!), R and I met up with MH and EG at DeVere's, an Irish-ish Pub in Midtown. 

Why did we meet up with them?

Because TRIVIA!!

We didn't "win", but I haven't laughed so hard in years.  We had sooooo much fun, and we did get a lot of good pulls: R got Iowa, I got 2/3 of an answer about Tom Hanks, MH talked us into Hamlet, and EG found the White Stripes with a lot of confidence.

Mostly, though, nights like tonight are delightful, for the following: every once in a while, you'll find yourself sitting across from an instant friend, and it's just not even a question.  It's one of the most amazing experiences on earth.  It becomes an exercise in joy; a eustress, as the endocrinologists say.

Endocrinologists know how to party.

Also, R asked me to draw somebody, so I drew a nice woman sitting at a nearby table, who was of a certain age.  She could NOT have responded more positively.  One of her companions said, "She's gonna adopt ya; this is a good deal!"  She was quite pleased, and I was happy in my heart.  I draw a lot of portraits, but that was by far one of the most rewarding.  She told me many times that she was going to have it framed, with a sincerity that touched me all the way to my toes.

It was a really, really, really good night.

I love my friends!!

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 142: The smell of the farmers' market (or, possibly, farmer's or farmers... I'm not actually sure what the correct punctuation might be here) in Sacramento is that subtle smell of sunshine and fresh cut grass and honey and joy.  It is quite possibly my favorite thing about this town.  I always walk away loaded down with fresh tomatoes, and always a little gem I hadn't been looking for.  This time, it was a handful of fresh chives to make chive oil.  It's stupidly simple (put a handful of chives, a tbsp of salt, and a couple of cups of vegetable oil in a blender, and then strain out the solids), but it's one of Thomas Keller's signature sauces, and it's delicious on EVERYTHING.  I also picked up a couple of bottles of Happy Valley Olive Oil, one for R and one for myself, because it's the best olive oil I've ever tasted, hands down.

I had made duck confit, and R was hoping someone would turn up with delicious food, so that worked out well. We enjoyed the season 3 finale of Sons of Anarchy while dining on duck and roasted cauliflower (also from the market), with the chive oil drizzled over to give a great little taste and also a magnificent emerald highlight to the veg. 

It's POSSIBLE that we're the only people on earth who enjoyed that particular episode eating that particular dish.

Life is at its mos

Day 141: Today, I watched the Gamecocks beat Arkansas, watched Texas A&M upset Alabama, and watched Notre Dame thump Boston College.  It's been a heartbreaking season for the Gamecocks, but I've been able to salvage some fun watching them do very well in the last couple of games, and cheering on the Golden Domes of Notre Dame with R.  He's not a fair-weather fan, either: his pop was a professor at Notre Dame!  It's fun watching the games with him, because he knows ALL of the history of the Fightin' Irish, and I feel like I have the inside scoop.

After all of that football, we had no choice but to go out to the Roller Derby Charity Burlesque show. 

...right?



For charity, I'm saying.

I'm a giver.

I give.

;)

Charlie texted me asking me to put this recipe up on the blog, and so here it is.  I hope you all enjoy it!!


TOMATO WATER RECIPE


Tomato Water is NOT tomato juice.  It is the essence of spring.  It's one of the best things you can do for yourself.  Trust me.  A lot of people think that it's really wasteful, but, come on, tomatoes are cheap!

4 pounds of tomatoes
NOTE: if at ALL possible, buy tomatoes fresh from a farmer.  Grocery store tomatoes have been chilled, which turns off a particular ester that contributes to that "tomato-y" taste.  If you can't find fresh (it's getting a BIT late in the season), grocery store 'maters will do, but fresh will always be better.

2 tbsp kosher salt

Throw the tomatoes into a blender or food processor, or, if you lack either, just chop roughly.  Put a colander into a large pot, and line it with cheesecloth (preferable) OR wet paper towels.  Pour the tomato puree into the colander, being sure not to let any of the red flesh fall into the pot.  Let sit for... well, you know, some hours.  The liquid extracted is a clear golden color; if it's red, you should strain it again.

The longer it sits, the more will be extracted.  You can help, but try not to help too vigorously!

Then you can delight your friends with how awesome you are.  Seriously, this is a can't-miss treat that always surprises people.

And, with that, my friends, I will bid you a fond ADVENTURE!!  :)