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Summer Crowds

Saturday, June 27, 2009

I love summer.

I love summer fruit at the peak of flavor, which I purchase to be eaten by next breakfast. I love sailing on my bicycle through the heady aromas and seductive botanical pageantry along mountain roads.

I do not, absolutely do not love summer crowds.

The malls and markets of summer are flush with day shoppers, students, and tourists. People generally move in crowded places with oblivion and clumsiness, like blind cattle. Amid the chaos, I get anxious, annoyed, and soon feel exasperated and bitchy.

A few things I’d like to see more people doing in a crowd:

1) Carrying their effects in such a way that makes their personal sphere well, not so spherical.

2) Travelling generally on the right of a path, with the swifter walkers a little further to the left.

3) Moving in such a manner that allows others to anticipate their actions, neither darting anywhere suddenly, stopping abruptly, nor weaving side to side.

4) Generally paying attention to what other people are doing. This may not only help clear up clogged areas, but also protect them from pickpockets.

I think maybe we’ve been a car culture too long to have much common sense about this issue. But as our country graduates more architects and civic designers interested in creating attractive public spaces, this apparent lack of crowd sense is something that I’d like to see addressed more often.

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Thai Butternut Squash Panang Curry

Friday, May 8, 2009

This curry employs the typical technique and ingredients for Thai curry, except you should roast the squash first. You can do the roasting step days in advance.

Supplies and Equipment:

Medium Pot or Rice Cooker
Baking Sheet
Blender

Whole Butternut Squash
Panang Curry Paste
1 Can of Coconut Milk / 2 persons
Stick of Butter
Garlic
Fresh Basil

A Note on Curry Paste – The paste is the trickiest thing to find. Your best hope for a one-shot trip is an asian specialty store. It doesn’t have to be refrigerated prior to opening, so it should go with the general stock in the aisle. It might be near the dry noodles or canned sauces, though ironically I never only sometimes see it near the dry spices.

IMG_1739.jpg

Optional :

Fresh Ginger
Fish Sauce (Ubiquitous in authentic Thai food, even vegetarian dishes.)
Chopped Vegetables for color and contrast

Roasting the Squash:

So you’ll need to split a specimen of butternut squash, lengthwise.

Clear the guts out of the bulbous end of each piece.

Rub the flesh with butter, and put the rest in the cavity where the seeds were. Add brown sugar, if you want. Don’t want butter? At least rub with olive oil. It ensures even distribution of heat while helping the flesh to retain moisture.

Roast on the middle rack of the oven at 400F for about an hour. You can expect the skin to blacken, but the flesh should deepen in color and take on a custard-like texture around the edges.

When the flesh is nice and soft in the middle, take them out for cooling. It’s going to smell wonderful.

The Curry

Start your rice, now.

Blend 10g (2 tsp) paste per person with 1/2 can coconut milk per person. If you have an odd number of diners, skim the thick milk fat off the top of that last can. It’s the best part.

Scoop out the roasted squash into the blender a little at a time as the milk blends. 2-3 people will be serviced by each half.

This portion of spice should result in a pleasant tingle. It’ll relieve sinus pressure, but the heat isn’t by any means an emotional experience of itself. In the case of sweet curries such as this, I think the heat should play second, even third fiddle to the sweet-savory flavor and creamy texture. Play to your own taste, though.

Into the Pan!

Lubricate the pan for a sauté. You can use butter, canola oil, peanut oil, or cold-pressed olive oil (Xtra Virgin will probably burn).

Stir in hot pan until fragrant : chopped garlic (and/or ginger). A collective 3/4 handful is plenty.

Add the squashy blended milk mixture to the pan.

Add any vegetables you had ready, chopped bite sized.

Heat through and let it simmer at low heat, stirring occasionally. The sauce will thicken and intensify.

Serving time probably depends on how thick the sauce was to start with, but it happens pretty quick. My idea is that the sauce should start out loose in the blender, so that there is some water to cook out, giving coconut milk sugars time to acquire some nuttiness.

Take the curry off the heat as soon as the sauce tightens up. At that point, deal with any corrective seasonings. Fish sauce, tamarind, red pepper flakes, and cilantro are excellent additions.

Now, stir in a handful of basil leaves and serve over rice.

Done.

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Jonathan Coulton Songs

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

I’ve become a fan of this geek rocker who writes really wacky songs. Here is a top ten of my favorites.

10. Better: A man is falling out of love with his girlfriend who is addicted to cybernetic augmentations.

9. Tom Cruise Crazy: Tom Cruise is probably the only man on earth who couldn’t enjoy Tom Cruise.

8. First of May: Celebrate the coming of spring with joyful, indiscriminate outdoor sex.

7. Your Brains: Tom has fortified himself inside the mall against a zombie invasion. His zombified coworker, who probably was a particularly annoying power suit in life, opens one-sided parlay on behalf of the grey matter hungry masses.

6. Mandelbrot Set: The fun and magic – of fractals! A heroic ode to Benoit Mandelbrot.

5. Chiron Beta Prime: The irrepressibly cheerful Anderson family sends holiday greeting from their slave colony run by evil robots.

4. Mister Fancy Pants: “Say a little prayer for Mr. Fancy Pants. The whole world knows it’s only clothes. Deep in side, he’s sad.”

3. Skullcrusher Mountain: The clumsy flailing of a mad scientist in love.

2. I Feel Fantastic: The tragically funny inner dialogue of an acute pill-popper.

1: I’m Your Moon: Pluto isn’t a planet anymore, but Charon will always be there for him. An astonishingly poignant song of unconditional love.

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Fwoom!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

I beat my normal ride time to the station by ten minutes, whoo!

Sure I used the fancy bike, clipless pedals, reduced gear, and a broad interpretation of traffic signs. But gosh darn it, I smashed the hell out of my record this morning and I am just glowing with self-congratulation. Pat, pat.

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Farewell, Auto

Monday, August 25, 2008

American culture got hooked on the private auto because it meant a greater measure of freedom. One could go wherever roads are – on his own terms, at his own pace, limited only by the constraints of time and budget that were not so intensely impacted among the expanding middle class.

Autos for a time did not just symbolize freedom in use, but also in upkeep. Fuel was cheap, but the cars themselves were also mechanically simple. With a modern car, all but the most simple maintenance tasks are inaccessible to a home mechanic. Before the 1980s, an enterprising youngster could build his first car.

When cars later became accessible to teenagers, freedom took an extended interpretation, as the car represented refuge from their parent’s house. Since I came of age to drive, my parents continually pushed me to learn. They even pledged to buy the car, which was generous of them. I believe they saw my ownership of a car as a means of escape in a town I found smotheringly dull.

But I never liked cars. I’ve always looked at them like a sickly, troublesome pet – more trouble than it’s worth. I knew that if I had a car, I’d have to hold down a job to support it. I was way too much of a band geek to give up an hour of my spare time. Driving a four-seat car always felt like I was taking more space than I felt entitled to. It doesn’t help that I’ve always been a lousy driver.

I’m observing that private autos have been steadily falling out of use in American society. They are becoming unsustainably high-maintanence for lots of people. More trouble than they’re worth. Where cars were once associated with freedom, they are now more commonly a stone around the owner’s neck.

I prefer bicycles because of the open, non-invasive interface with the environment. The area extends evenly fore and aft, and I know exactly where I begin and end. It’s so much harder to get that sense of boundary when operating a vehicle that is largely empty space.

I’ve also enjoyed how bicycles are much easier to maintain. All the moving parts are out there in the open, obvious and self-evident. One does need special tools for some jobs, but these are much more accessible than the diagnostic computers needed to service modern cars. Fortunately, the special tools do not need to be called upon often, as long as one keeps diligent about the basic maintenance.

I don’t own a car anymore, nor do I miss it. I use a combination of bicycle, train, bus, taxi, and rideshare to get around. Some people have described my commute as epic, but I don’t find anything heroic about it. I see hundreds of workers making a similar journey every day. It’s just the direction society is going now.

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Curry Madness: Homemade Sauce

Saturday, August 23, 2008

I make curry quite a lot, because it’s fast, flexible, tasty. Until today, I have relied upon prepared sauce concentrate to make it. It’s cheap and convenient, but every dish tastes the same, give or take a certain degree of intensity.

Curry paste is not complex – blend some ground spices into a pool of chili oil. My boyfriend had gifted me some spice powder, so I thought I’d try to make curry from scratch.

I wasn’t particular about authenticity, but I wanted the curry to feature my favorite flavors. I chopped a handful of fresh ginger and garlic, and plucked a handful of fresh basil leaves. The spice melange composed mostly of cumin, coriander, cardamom, and chili flakes.

These things should blend in chili oil to make a thick paste, which you dilute with water to simmer bite-sized food chunks. I selected firm tofu for it’s neutral flavor, because I really wanted to see how my sauce would hold up on its own.

I had some issues with proportion of paste. At first, I added way too much to the simmering pot, and the texture was unpalatably gritty. I had to act fast, ladling out bubbling curry water while adding clean water. As a rule, I think three tablespoons of paste is appropriate for two capsicum-dependent diners.

I should note that the amount of water needs not be an exact and arbitrary volume. The role of the water is to regulate the cooking temperature and hydrate the spices to avoid burning. Most of the water eventually cooks out.

The last step involved what I call an “unctuous fluid”, usually yogurt, coconut milk, tomato sauce, cream, or peanut butter. The unctuous fluid brings a pleasant texture to the party, and helps the spices cling to the food.

When it comes to unctuous fluids, feel free to mix them. For example, my tofu curry was mostly coconut milk, but I found the taste to be lacking. Despite the ample spice, the underlying flavor was flat. I added a couple ounces of tomato sauce, knowing it’s acidic fruitiness loves the basil. The overall dish instantly snapped to life with full-bodied goodness. Always follow your hunches – just keep a fire extinguisher and your favorite takeout number ready.

Curry is usually accompanied by grain. I like classic Indian staples, like long-grained rice and flat bread, but there are more interesting companions, like quinoa and udon noodles. I am a big fan of curry sandwiches.

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Hipster Mini-Rant

Thursday, August 21, 2008

I took a bus down to the Mission District tonight for dinner. I had never taken the 49 before, so I was surprised to meet a mob containing every flavor of hipster on that bus.

The top of the route is in The Marina. It travels down to 4th & Market, and dumps the bulk of it’s mephitic load in the Mission. It’s a trifecta of consumable cool, a perfect storm of morbid vanity.

A more eloquent account of this loathsome non-culture to be found here.

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Chestnut Street

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A roadie or a physics student might parse the circumstances based upon four factors: a light bike, heavy backpack, 10 percent grade, front brake.

To put it more directly: I took a pretty spectacular spill on my bike.

I am really surprised that I was not badly hurt, though everything did hurt for a good while later. In an ironic stroke of serendipity, the oversized rucksack that contributed to my 9 point vault over the handlebars had also made my body shape irregular enough to stop me from rolling more than a few revolutions down the ludicrously steep pavement.

No other factors were in play: just me, gravity, and the left brake. I lay like a flipped turtle in the middle of empty Chestnut Street, San Fransisco, between Larkin and Polk in the wee hours of the morning.

And in this state, I had the silly recollection of Pauli Shore trying to milk a cow, which promptly dumped bowel and bladder on his head.

“Oops,” he muses wearily, “Wrong button.”

It seems the train gets more first-timer bicycle commuters every day. I’m still learning myself, and see that the cycling to work thing has pitfalls that are not so obvious. I gleaned from this experience some valuable lessons about handling descents under load, which I offer to you fledging commuters:

Consider investing in a sturdy rear rack and sensible panniers. You can expect this installation to cost no less than $100. A low center of gravity will make your bike handling less nimble, but much more forgiving. Things to avoid are panniers that will smack against your heel as you pedal. It’s really distracting, and will negatively impact the effectiveness of your stroke. Bonus- no more sweaty back or upper body tension.

Understand that the front brake has significantly more stopping power than the back brake. When you lock the front wheel, it acts as a pivot point, and inertia carries the vehicle around it. Stunt drivers use the same principle swing through tight corners at high speed. When cycling down a hill, the bike will simply pivot vertically – right over your head. Internalize which brake lever belong to which wheel, and always favor the back brake when going down hills.

To help keep your back wheel on the ground, you should adjust your riding position to the rear when careening down declines. Stand up and lean back until your elbows are almost straight. If you are turning through a curve, keep a habit of raising the inside pedal to the twelve o’clock position. This will keep the pedal from hitting the ground as the bike leans into the turn. Failure to do so may damage the crank or pop the back wheel off the ground, which naturally negates any further attempt at handling.

I hope you benefit from my silliness. Be careful out there, and enjoy the ride.

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Into the Breach

Thursday, July 31, 2008

I went to Bay Area Gaming Studio this morning to sign my offer letter and complete other paperwork. Same as the day of my interview, I waited in a lobby with a couple other anxious people, no longer candidates but new hires. Another immaculate HR person hands us each a thick packet of documents, to be read and signed at our leisure, and guides us through the secure parts of the building in a notably less circuitous path.

I am lead to the place I was to work. About a dozen people are already there, interacting with two long rows of LAN connected computer stations. It’s a multiplayer lab.

I recognized one of the men who interviewed me. He had traded his bright shirt for a wool cap against the palpable chill in the room. Lots of running hardware in here – makes sense. There are vents in the floor among the ubiquitous cables.

I was greeted warmly and invited to sit at a station with the other testers. I settled into the game, some kind of third-person shooter. Though I’d grown up watching my step-father play at these kinds of games, I had never tried to play one myself. I’ve typically preferred something more relaxed and thoughtful, and DOOM scared the hell out of me.

The other testers were very, very good at this game. I tried to check my frustration over being unable to find the gun caches, negotiate the maps, or dodge snipers. I didn’t understand the team game objectives.

Lunch was served two hours later, and my initial enthusiasm of the morning had turned soggy. How am I supposed to push the game capabilities past the breaking point when I could barely strafe? Why did my first project have to be a shooter?!

The lab testers were friendly, took me in right away. As we walked together to the dining commons, they pointed out a long table to go back to when I had gotten my lunch. Between rich cheeseburgers and friendly words, I felt much better.

We go back to the lab, and I felt determined to develop fighting skill. I eventually found a shotgun, and to my surprise, discovered an aptitude for it. The testers had explained the game rules to me over lunch, and I elected to guard choke points in my team’s territory, which suited the shotgun’s deadly yet limited range. I racked 14 kills in the first match of the afternoon!

The day was over before I knew it, not just because I was finally having fun, but also because the lab room is not unlike a casino – no windows and no clocks. Knowing the time demands soon to be asked of me, I can see how this setup is beneficial. It’s easier to work 12-14 hours when you don’t see the time pass.

I was reminded around 6pm to catch my train, that was the last time I left work before dinnertime.

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What’s your Greatest Weakness?, Pt. 2

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Additionally, interviewers: I don’t see the advantage of putting the spotlight on your candidate’s major flaws:

What if an 18th century Marshall of France looked at a Corsican cadet’s diminutive stature and said, “Je suis desolé, Napoleon, but you just don’t command the presence of an officer.”

Benjamin Franklin was reported to be a robust and handsome youth. He lived half his life in poor health because he made bad lifestyle choices of which he was perfectly aware were unhealthful.

We all have these kind of glaring faults and vices, but we shouldn’t be judged by them on the short term. In the little time they have, it’s probably more viable to allow your candidates to showcase their mitigating strengths.

Imperfections are perfectly common, but well-adjusted people don’t enter solemn commitments with others because they chiefly lack any one of a laundry list of undesirable qualities. Instead, they seek out and come to rely upon specific important qualities, which also serve as the saving grace in the face of numerous lesser sins.

I invite all interviewers to convey their thoughts. Do you use or avoid this question? I’m not going to try to tear you down if you happen to keep this curveball in your arsenal. However, I do enjoy a good argument.

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