Sonya has wondered several times about creating a database of recipes that our friends use on a regular basis. For good reason, too: It’s a fine idea to see what constitutes day to day eating in other households! Although it’s more like dishes we prepare vaguely periodically, since some ingredients are seasonal, and our moods and tastes change. 
Dishes prepared quasi-regularly
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Local Ethiopian restaurants
Sunday, 4 May 2008
I love eating with my hands. Considering my hand-washing compulsion, it’s ironic yet compatible. Combine that with spicy food, and Ethiopian cuisine can winningly satisfy me. Some standbys and favorites:
- Injera, a teff based flatbread that’s sour, spongey and soft.
- A good collection of vegetarian dishes, such as kik alicha (yellow split peas), atakilt wot (stewed cabbage, potatoes and carrots), gomen wot (sautéed collard greens), and my favorite…
- …Yemisir wot, brown lentils simmered in a fiery red sauce!
- Yedoro tibs, chopped chicken (usually deboned) cooked into a rich, spicy red stew. Sometimes I’ll have a similar dish, doro wot, chicken on the bone stewed with whole hard-boiled eggs.
- Asa tibs or asa wot (fish stew), or shrimp tibs. Tricky to find a good version, if at all.
- Tej, a honey wine, often homemade or locally produced.
- Iyeb, homemade fresh cheese, reminiscent of a tart ricotta cheese.
- Tea, Ethiopian style, made with a spiced water.
Long waits seem to be an attribute universal to Ethiopian restaurants. Take it as an opportunity to exercise one’s conversational skills with one’s companions. 
Several places do take away, so perhaps I’ll call ahead to take a meal home, one of these days.
Two restaurants succeed in more respects than others: Zeni and Rehoboth, both located in San José. (Neither serve any seafood, though.)
Removed WP accounts
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Because I no longer require user registration, I finally removed all Subscriber accounts on this site. You should still be able to leave comments, of course, as well as subscribe via the feeds. (My comment policy otherwise remains the same.)
A year with GreenCine
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
I’ve been using GreenCine’s DVD rental service for over a year. On the whole, my opinion of GreenCine has become pretty much similar to that of Netflix. Both are slow with delivery. Furthermore, both have huge catalogs, yet they almost never respond to customer suggestions for DVD additions.
Shipping was damn fast when GreenCine had their warehouse in the Bay Area. Then last summer they moved to Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Over a period of two months, while they transitioned to their new location, delivery was painfully protracted —up to 3 weeks for some discs! Even without throttling, rental shipment now takes as long as Netflix.
As a partial solution, I’ve continued the habit of borrowing DVDs at my local libraries. I go through my Rental Queue, and if a disc exists at a library, I remove it from the queue. This works for mainstream films, TV series and moderately known documentaries.
What other DVD rental solutions are out there, which would better satisfy my video needs? I’d be keen to hear your suggestions.
Non-fiction books read in 2007 and beyond
Friday, 25 April 2008
For the longest time I wouldn’t read non-fiction books outside of work or school. “What is this non-fiction for pleasure you speak of?” The key wasn’t to follow what’s necessarily popular, best-sellers on history, politics, or purely goal-oriented how-to books. The key was to start with my gut-level (as it were) interests: food, travel, biology. I still read more fiction, but that’s fine. At least the world of non-fiction writing has opened up and can hold my attention.
I’ll write up what I’ve read this year…around the beginning of next year. For now, here are some snippet-thoughts on the non-fiction books I’ve read over the past few years. I’ve excluded technical / computer books, and food books which are encyclopedic or primarily cookbooks, since I write about those in other entries.
Pizza with chicken, cheese & chutney
Monday, 21 April 2008
Here’s an example of my being a food mutant: I don’t like pizza. To clarify: I don’t like deep dish pizzas, which are far too soggy. Thin crusts tend to change my mind. I don’t like tomato sauces —oh, I love tomatoes, sauces and tomato sauces, but on pizzas the gloppiness issue crops up again. White pizzas which use little (usually non-tomato) to no sauce, do pique my interest.
And the toppings! How insanely I denounce sausage, pepperoni, salami, ham, pineapple, bell peppers and olives. “Criminy, what else is left? What could possibly remain to grace the surface of the best beloved savory pie?” Ah, many things. Such as chicken, cheese and chutney.
I’d love to hear about your favorite unusual, unconventional (yet tasty) pizza toppings!
Basic bread recipe for sandwiches and focaccia (and pizza)
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
It’s been years since I baked yeast-based breads. Glad I’ve picked up the habit again! Having focaccia to snack on, or just a decent loaf for sandwiches, makes for comforting (not to mention tastier and fresher) eats. The dough is versatile, so I also use it for pizzas.
Three cookbooks aided me in my rediscovery of bread making:
- Bread, by Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno, for ideas on weight proportions in the British edition of the publication. A beautiful D.K. book, catering to my visual food porn desires. Also contains intriguing suggestions on crazy flours and grains to experiment with. I have the earlier 1998 UK edition; I haven’t seen whether the more recent 2007 US edition would include weight measurements.
- Cookwise, by Shirley Corriher, for tips on kneading by machine and sponge development (a.k.a., pre-fermentation). She goes a bit too crazy with a multitude of ingredients for just a basic loaf, but it’s still informative and interesting reading. Especially the fact that the sponge step doesn’t always require hours or days!
- Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary edition, by Rombauer, Rombauer-Becker and Becker. The basic white bread recipe satisfies with a small number of straightforward ingredients. But far too much salt! (That was easy to fix, though.)
Blissfully smooth WordPress 2.5 upgrade
Saturday, 12 April 2008
Upgrading from WordPress 2.3.x to 2.5 was as smooth as silk. No joke, I made only a few of core changes, but they were on the level of trivial tweaks:
- Upload my preferred set of
/wp-includes/images/smilies/. - Modify
/wp-includes/functions.phpto recognize said custom smilies. - Change
/wp-includes/category-template.phpto say articles instead of topics fortitletips while hovering over tag links, darn it.
I like WordPress’s new admin UI, especially the spiffy blue-grey-orange color scheme. Even though I’m still playing with the interface, tasks remain straightforward.
What’s remaining? Upgrading my theme, but as with the upgrade to WP 2.3, I can work through that separately, at my convenience. In addition, I’ve noticed only one weird plugin issue, so far; can’t do much but wait until an update arrives for that.
Simple Tags v1.5.3: No longer see the long, sortable list of tags under Manage Tags. Being able to sort alphabetically (as well as by use) makes tag management bearable with the gazillion tags I have. I also prefer how Simple Tags allows removal and renaming of tags. Update (14 April 2008): Version 1.5.6, released yesterday, fixes the issue. Yay!
Local Salvadoran restaurants, pupuserías
Monday, 7 April 2008
Oh, how I love pupusas: The creaminess of cheese and masa, with tidbits of chicken if I’m lucky. A fine reason to seek out eateries that focus on food from El Salvador. Not quite as well-known as Mexican food, Salvadoran cuisine tends towards the mild.
The Salvadoran version of horchata is the next-most-important thing. I still don’t think I’ve got the recipe quite right, so that’s another item I always order at Salvadoran restaurants.
My favorites (best listed first) are a tie between Vicky’s and Sabor. My standard order is chicken (with cheese), beans (with cheese), loroco (with cheese) or even zucchini (with cheese). Curtido (pickled cabbage slaw, sometimes with chile, carrots, oregano and/or epazote) and (non-spicy) tomato sauce accompany the pupusas. (I have yet to find a tomato-sauce-for-pupusas that I enjoy. Unfortunately, they all seem bland, almost like tomato soup or sauce from a can.)
What are your favorite (or not-so-favorite) pupuserías? Especially those with interesting or unconventional fillings. Have any of you tried rice pupusas?
Encyclopedia of Life: Initial launch
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Last year I had eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Encyclopedia of Life (EoL). Entries on individual species became viewable on 28 February, a few months earlier than the projected mid-2008 deadline. Coolness!
Currently they have twenty-four exemplar species pages, tens of thousands of authenticated (but not detailed) species pages, and about a million other species pages with minimal, unauthenticated data. Assuming that there are nearly 2 million species to document, that’s not too shabby for an initial proof of concept launch! Filling in the blanks will be ongoing work, because biology is a growing and dynamic field, after all. But if the content is informative and well-crafted, I certainly don’t mind.
I’ve been watching this site since its launch, and a few of my criticisms below have already been resolved over the past month. The EoL still has a long road to travel, nevertheless it’s great to see the progress and improvement.
