Cooking Adventures

I am the queen of procrastination. But I guess I needed a day off, so me not working at all today is okay. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

So I made two things today. Veggie lasagna, and vegetable soup (pictured above).

The lasagna turned out good, though I now know to use the best quality mozzarella I can find for optimum melting and browning. I ended up using eggplant and zucchini and totally forgot the mushrooms I was going to put in. Oh well.

The soup was more of an adventure in that I totally had no idea what I was doing. It started with me having some extra eggplant and zucchini from the lasagna and so I chopped them up and was just going to make a stir fry when I remembered that I had carrots so I chopped up three of those too and threw them into the frying pan. Then I thought to myself, when I am going to eat a dish with chunks of carrot and actually enjoy it? (My aversion to plain carrot chunks is much like my aversion to plain tomato chunks, only in very particular situations.)

So then I got some boiling water, poured in the contents of the frying pan into the saucepan, threw in some salt and pepper and then let it boil for aaages. Then after they got all soft I started thinking about how I probably wouldn't eat soup with chunks THAT big, so I poured the whole kit n' caboodle into a blender and ran it through. Out came a nice tasting soup, but without enough body, so I remembered I had some potatoes. Which I chopped, boiled 'em until tender and threw them into the blender too.

I was left with a yummy, full bodied and textural treat. Which is what you see above, with the addition of home made croûtons, i.e. bread cut up, drizzled with olive oil and sent into the toaster oven for a few minutes.

Yum.

Time is Ticking

Sometimes I honestly feel like I am wasting my time, and missing out on what has potential to be a truly wonderful and magical life.

All the pieces are there, it's just, the process of getting to where I want to be is paved with jagged stones that is my education, which pierce the linen slip-ons that I chose to wear on this journey. It's troubled times like this that I realize I am not as aware, prepared, resilient and flexible that I would like to believe I am.

The worst part is that even on a beautiful day, sunny with a calm breeze, even with delicious food cooking somewhere, even with the waters reflecting the bright sunlight and beckoning to me, I still have to sit in front of this fucking computer and do my shitty, brainless work.

There is simply no time for procrastination.

A Video That Only Cat People Can Appreciate...

Now that I'm spending so much time at school, I have found new ways for quick stress-relief. One of them is looking at the biggest lolcat website "I Can Has Cheeze Burger" and basically looking at some of them totally cracks me up and lets me forget for one second that I have 142 things on my to-do list.

A sampling:

Linkage: San Francisco in Three Days

I'm starting what I'm calling a "Linkage" series for posts that is predominately links with some explanation on the side...enjoy the first one:

I guess in the last year and half I haven't had any visitors so I haven't had to give anyone a tour of San Francisco. How that I've typed that out I realize how sad it might sound, but honestly, I don't have a ton of friends that want or need to visit San Francisco, it simply doesn't happen no matter where I am. At least that's what I keep telling myself to ward off the psychotic depression that might result from the realization that I have no friends.

Anyway, Khamph came to visit and we did -sort of- a crash course in San Francisco. Wednesday she arrived, I picked her up via BART and took her home, dropped stuff off and carted her off to Union Square to check in for her conference. Stopped for a quick bite to eat at Bangkok Noodles for some fast and delicious Thai, which we both thoroughly enjoyed, then off to work for me (via school, which is a whole 'nother story I shant get into now.) After work, met her at Union Square and ran over to Katana-Ya for some delicious ramen and then made our way home. So end of the Thursday and Khamph has seen a tiny section of the Mission and Union Square. Keep count.

Next day, escorted her to the conference, and then off to work. Knocked off at six and made my way home, hung out then got CCS off to Eight Immortals to dine with my school friends, which was rip roaring fun, delicious spare ribs which I ate too much of. Move down the street to Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream for some gelato which was pretty damn good to cap off the night. Now Khamph has seen tiny part of the Mission, Union Square, part of Castro on the way to inner Sunset and Haight (since I got lost and drove down it to get home).

Next day I didn't have anything work/school planned, so we got CCS yet again and drove over to Clement street in the Richmond district to get our Wing Lee Bakery on. Yummy rice porridge and spring rolls in my belly. Walk down the street to Kamei to get some tupperware and (FINALLY) a French press. We still had some time left with the car so drove down to the Legion of Honor to get some pictures with the Golden Gate Bridge, the building and The Thinker by Rodin. Make our way home, chill out for a spell while she went with another friend to Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf. Once she gets back we make our way over to Yamo for some tea salad and curried delights, capped off with some halo halo and grasshopper pie at Mitchell's Ice Cream. So now she has seen tiny part of the Mission, Union Square, part of Castro, inner Sunset, Haight, Richmond district, Presidio, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and some more of the Mission.

Next morning, bussed it over to the Ferry Building for the farmer's market, walked around, had some Pancho Villa, bought a few flowers and bussed it back to the house, packed up dropped her off at the airport. And now she has seen tiny part of the Mission, Union Square, part of Castro, inner Sunset, Haight, Richmond district, Presidio, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and some more of the Mission, a little SOMA on the way to the Ferry Building, Embarcadero and the drive down to the airport.

And even though that was the end of her exploring, I still had more to do.

Went to donate unused clothing at the Community Thrift Store, followed by some cake-buying at Dianda's, followed by some pie-buying at Mission Pie. Rounded off the day by bringing it all home, eating the pie and now blogging, and soon to be working...

And THAT was San Francisco in three days people. It may not have been back to back insanity, but it was enough touring to keep me going for a while.