whatever happened to being young and resilient?

i left work after 8 hours today, after almost falling asleep 15 feet off the ground on top of a poorly secured giant suitcase, after every click of the staple gun was an effort, after getting home at midnight last night and being at work at nine, after almost crying after crying.

dave rolled his eyes at me when i said i had to leave. the guilt trip might have worked were i not reassured by the whole crew (one by one) that i didn't look too good.

when it's all over, at least i'll have rent money.

i'm still somwhat alive

14 hour work day

hurts to hold my head up

two ... more ... days ...

jackpot

After an 11 hour work day, my night was pretty okay.

thanks TCHO.

today's culinary adventures

First off, I made a pot of yogurt last night using a few tablespoons of Fage

Greek yogurt and a half gallon of milk. Making yogurt is one of the easiest

(and most mystifying) kitchen activities I have encountered thus far.

Simply heat up your milk (try not to let it boil, although I neglected to do

this last night due to my reading a book), let it cool off again until it is luke

warm (cool enough to take a bath in, best temperature description ever,

unless you take really hot baths) and add a few tablespoons of yogurt. Then

cover it with a lid/plate/towel/all three and put it somewhere to incubate.

I stick it in the oven with the oven off (or the light on). Let it sit overnight,

and you'll have a whole pot of yogurt! To get fancy, pour your yogurt into a

cheesecloth set up in a strainer over a large pot. Weight the top of it and the

whey will start to strain out. The result is a pot of whey and a strainer full

of thick delicious yogurt! (if it is too lumpy after straining, stick it in a

blender)

Now previously, I had always dumped the whey down the drain, but I decided

to give this ricotta thing a whirl, since I had already put aside the day to ruining

the kitchen, so the whey went back on the stove, and lo and behold! the curds

started to coagulate, and it smelled like warm fresh ricotta cheese. It was really

a lovely smell. It would have been great, except that this is all the yield I got

from a quart of whey:

But moving on.

Sunday night dinner number two was a smashing success with the theme "things

that look like eggs but aren't eggs." Featured below: Jesse's buckwheat and rice

crust, swiss chard, pesto, and double cheese deep dish pizza, and my curried lentil

burgers with yogurt and sauerkraut.

and Lauren's savory bread pudding, absolutely delicious, even though it didn't

look like an egg. All of this was washed down with the best kombucha I've ever

had: locally made smoked pear (in a beautiful glass bottle to boot).

We took a long break before dessert, because gluten free pizza, lentils, and

bread pudding all tend to expand in your stomach after a few minutes.

Conversation soon turned to the day's kitchen absurdity, which not only involved

burning a pot of mung beans beyond repair, but also included burning a pot of

curried lentils (salvageable at least), and to top it all off, letting the water boil off

while making dulce de leche, and burning the crap out of that as well. A cursory

archaeological search in my kitchen sink yielded a solid chunk of formerly-

sweetened-condensed-milk ash. I'm going to attribute all of these to being

exhausted.

But dessert couldn't wait forever, and soon we sat down to a lemon-white chocolate

mousse with mango, rosewater and azuki bean mochi, and dulce de leche. Damn tasty.

Now taking suggestions for next week's dinner theme, although it might end up

being "anything but lentils," which are what I will be eating for lunch and dinner

the remainder of the week.

so that's how light sabers work?

9 and a half hours into a 10 hour work day my judgment was definitely lacking.

The blade of the jigsaw I was using to cut out some semicircular panel details

jumped off its track, and I tried to push it back between its bearings to keep

cutting. Unfortunately friction had made the blade hot! I felt it burning my

thumb after a few seconds and looked at my thumb to see the heat had

cauterized the place where I was pressing it! There's now a nasty looking

(sealed) split in the tip of my thumb. I'm thinking that won't go away soon.

On a better note, I started work at Cafe Hurghada today, and I am happy to

know that I will have some income after the parade. After work Jesse and I

went to Crittersalon's Mother Cultural Exchange at the Center for Urban

Projects. It was a (really nice) room full of DIYers sharing their miso, kefir,

yogurt, sourdough, mushroom and kombucha cultures, and some champapple

to try. Very cool stuff. I'm working on a pot of yogurt now, and just did some

research on ricotta cheese, which is apparently made from the whey you get

when you strain yogurt. I'll be posting on that soon.

Stay tuned for tomorrow night's dinner, which is themed things-that-look-

like-eggs. Thanks to Jesse and Kari for suggesting that one.

the workers

just another thursday

I've had something of a marathon 24 hours, from going back to work

for the parade guy (against my moral standards but my bank account

is lacking) from 9:30-5, heading straight to SFSU to assist a demo

from visiting artist Jaime Guerrero (awesome demo of a skull,

followed by a hand holding a veiny heart), crashing as soon as I got

home in order to get to work with Hilary Williams at 9. I don't think

I've mentioned Hilary yet, but I am interning with her for the next 9

weeks (ish). Today I printed a couple of layers of an edition of 50

works on paper, using her flashy pneumatic silkscreening press. Way

cool.

Hilary also gave me one of her cheap frames today, and now this piece:

is framed and for sale at D-Structure SF on Haight and Fillmore, if

any of you are in the neighborhood.

In other news, here is a pile of leg straps waiting to be sewn, there

is a batch of vegan rice and corn muffins in the oven, I could barely

ride to Balboa Park this morning, and I'm on my fourth cup of coffee.

Oops.

p.s. the (approximate) recipe:

3 c cooked brown rice (or any cooked grain blend. I also cooked my rice with some spices)

2 2/3 c dry grain (I used both polenta and cornmeal, but for other batches I used oats)

1/2 T salt (you can cook it in with the rice, and/or add it later)

some olive oil, not much

3 c juice (first batch I used apple cider, it was great. Next batch got cranberry juice, and I added pear slices, also great. This one I ran out of juice 1 1/2 cups in and just used water, and it's still good. The juice makes the bread pretty sweet. I think the next batch will be a savory one with miso soup as the liquid)

embellish liberally. I recommend slices of fruit cooked in, a slice of citrus across the top to caramelize, nuts, seeds, cinnamon, dates, sour berries.... really, you can't go wrong.

bake at 350. If you want a loaf, it should bake about an hour. If you want muffins keep it down to 20 minutes or so. They'll be done when the top is dry and almost crispy but the sides are still really moist.

dinner!

Happy Valentine's Day (and Chinese New Year) to everybody. Celebrations

were in order over here, so Kari and I planned a pocket-themed dinner

party! On the menu:

Stuffed peppers and tomatoes, with rice, polenta, gouda cheese, onions,

portabello mushrooms, eggplant and thyme

Dolmas full of brown rice, cardamon, walnuts, dates and barberries

Fried parsnip and portabello spring rolls with cranberry sauce

Fresh summer rolls filled with tofu, blood oranges, nectarines, avocado,

cucumber and daikon

Broccoli rabe and eggplant ravioli (buckwheat and whole wheat pasta

dough)

The dessert is not photographed, and was not pocketed, but was

unequivocally delicious: poached d'anjou pears with a chocolate beer

reduction sauce, a la mode with coconut milk vanilla ice cream, plus

homemade banana bread from Paul, who also made a saucepan full of

fresh Arabic coffee.

Dwoira also whipped up a carbonated watermelon drink with fresh

mint leaves

Thanks to all of our valentines, and we are now taking suggestions for next

week's theme (come over!)

-Sadie and Kari

on the up and up

It's an aberration of a day here, with the temperature bouncing between

62 and 48 degrees. The sun shows no intention of ever going down, and

the bars on my street have all had lines out the door since before 11 am.

Kari and I woke up with the jackhammers just past 8 and ducked out to

the Ferry Building farmer's market. There we sampled orange after orange

before finally agreeing to buy some broccoli rabe.

I just got back from a meeting with this little cafe, described by one happy

yelper as "an oasis of normality amongst all the depravity of the TL." It

looks like I'm being trained next Saturday morning, and after working a

few shifts, reanalyzing the menu to make the food more interesting. Not

a bad gig, and the neighborhood will bring some worthwhile stories.

Other than that, I rode my bike over 20 miles today! I think it's a sign that

I'll be back to normal soon. I do NOT plan on going back to work at the

parade, which is a weight off my shoulders, to say the least.

just the miscellaneous

while productivity is still low, i've been filling up the hours quite consistently.

last night, kari paul and jesse were over for a meal of roasted beets and beet

greens, radish/mint/hazelnut/arugula/blood orange/sundried tomato salad,

lentil soup, and vegan passion fruit chocolate mousse.

the chocolate mousse is as follows:

melt 2-3 oz unsweetened chocolate (or sweetened and leave out the sweetener)

add agave/honey until the chocolate is just sweeter than you actually want it

mix ~2 oz passion fruit pulp with 4-8 oz coconut milk, add to chocolate

put everything in a blender until emulsified

taste and edit

chill covered about 2 hours, or until mousse is not liquidy

so.damn.tasty.

in other news, i spent the day sailing with kari and her uncle, and i got in a few

open mic drawings before quickly and completely crashing. camera batteries

crashed too, pictures soon.

speed-thru run-down

My sage roommate Jamie sighed and said, "We've only ever been young."

The new things over here?

We're on a search for a new roommate.

The Glass at Sea job emailed to ask for references.

I have an interview at a cafe this weekend for a guy who wants to spice up his menu.

Kari is on her way here to stay the week before going to Australia!

Work is killing me.

back to business

I just rode over to the C & C Garment Company (in the same building

as Noisebridge, a local hackerspace), to talk about sewing up some

jerseys. I haven't given them any thought at all since I started working

on the parade, and it's been getting me down.

The bad news is they do not cut, but that is a-okay, because the good

news is they can sew each shirt for $3.50.

$3.50! What was I even thinking trying to sew them myself?!

I'm not quite ready to go into production, as I'd really like to work with

a pattern maker to make the jerseys perfect, to talk to some fabric

companies to try and source some wholesale yardage, to take some sewn

shirts to stores and get some orders, and then to cut and applique like

crazy, but I feel really good about getting the ball rolling.

If any of you want to take a crack at repping the shirts at your local bike

shops, let me know and I'll send you a shirt when they get made. Maybe

this thing can actually take off!

that guy

It was another glitter day, tomorrow will be too.

The way you feel when you look at your handiwork at this

job vaguely approximates (but falls just short of) pride.