With Chinese New Year holiday upon us I’ve been free for the last couple days. Have Tuesday off, too. I had a bit of work to do this morning, so after sleeping till eight, I made myself a latte, and then jogged to work. It was nicer than normal. Traffic was light so there was less noxious road fumes to suck.
Afterward had lunch at a bakery in Robertson walk, Simply Bread. The bakery is good. In terms of running a cafe it needs some work. Anyway, it was breezy, with a rain moving in, and Luke was napping deeply, so we just relaxed and drank average espressos for an hour or so. I took home two fresh batards and a ciabatta. Walking around, I found a number of possibly-interesting Japanese restaurants, including an izakaya, a manga/ramen restaurant, and a restaurant that bills itself as serving ‘Taiwanese food in the Japanese Style.’ I have no idea what that would be, but I’m guessing dumplings.
What’s coming up? In early March the three of us are taking a week’s vacation to Sydney. Ling wants to visit Tien-Lee. I want to kayak, drink good coffee, play poker, and buy nice groceries.
One bit of bad news is that the Toby’s Estate coffee roasting class isn’t being held during the week I visit. I’ll see what i can manage on my own. At the very least I’ll buy an iRoast to play with as my first foray into roasting my own coffee beans. Of course I covet a real sampling roaster, but that can wait till I build my house.
Hopefully my kayak guide will be in town; I was planning on learning how to roll my Fujita canoe before the water got too cold. If he’s not around I’ll have to figure out something else to do outdoors beside grazing cafes.
Went grocery shopping late this afternoon. Made a special trip to Cold Storage in Jelita, which last time I was there, seemed to have a better selection of produce than elsewhere. It started out ok and I starting filling the cart with vegetables and fruits, but Luke was becoming more and more of a maniac, and eventually I just wrapped up whatever I had selected so far and fucked off home. Ling and I both had had a gutful.
I bought a huge heap of tomatoes and peppers, as I wanted to make a cauldron of the same roast peppers/tomato soup from yesterday. I used my food mill this time to do the initial separation of seed and skin from the soup, before I sieved it. Seemed to be pretty silky when I poured it into the container. I have a gallon of the stuff chilling in the refrigerator now.
For dinner I took a cheap piece of flank steak, smashed it with Pa’s old meat tenderizing hammer, and rubbed it down with salt, pepper, olive oil, and the rest of the garlic in the house. This garlic was starting to get too old. I’d crack them open and find green shoots starting to form. I tried to sear the meat in my electric grill but didn’t get the browning action I had hoped for. Either it cooked too fast or their was too much liquid on the meat. Regardless the steak was quite juicy and nicely seasoned. I did a bias cut across the grain and served it spilled on a big bed of mixed lettuces. I picked out very strong, leafy lettuces that hold up to the heat and sop up the steak juice.
I accompanied the salad/steak with a dressing made from a few teaspoons of fierce English mustard, red vinegar, and olive oil emulsified with the handprocessor I was boasting about yesterday. It was an interesting, strong dressing that bordered on nose-clearing at times.
With some toasted slices of batard I used up some old button mushrooms by grinding them into a tapanade with some old (notice a pattern here?) anchovies from the refrigerator. Was nice but I should have reserved some mushroom for texture rather than totally pureeing it.
Dessert seems to be the one disaster of the night. I had a bin full of oranges and grapefruits so I took inspiration from a Nigel Slater recipe and, essentially, tried to make citrus and cardamon jello out of it. Except I used a weird asian gelatin-like stuff called Agar-Agar. Among the problems? I didn’t use enough of it, if it would even work at all in the strong citrus base. And I didn’t appreciate that the agar-agar was preseasoned with some sort of fake, nasty chemical orange flavoring. A few times tonight I’ve checked on martini glasses full of runny orange juice. Once I tasted it and nearly gagged. Imagine orange juice where someone has also poured in some cheap orange-aid-style powder. I think this dessert is destined for the drain by noon tomorrow.
Brewed up the remains of a couple kilograms of beans Lee brought me from Toby’s Estate in Sydney two weeks ago. Oh well, was nice while it lasted. Back to my Spinelli’s fallback starting tomorrow. One thing I don’t like, though, is Toby’s drinking chocolate. It’s not nearly sweet enough for my taste. I prefer the more pedestrian Ghirardelli drinking chocolate for my mochas.
The empty lot across the street will begin piling work soon. The heavy machinery will entertain Luke but no one else. Contractors have already been through the neighborhood documenting cracks in foundations as defense against future complaints and the foreman has been taking scrupulous care to introduce himself to everyone on the street to avoid future problems as they spend a few weeks driving 10m long rods into the ground.
Have spent almost no time at all on projects recently, ham radio, art, or anything else. Life mostly monopolized by work, Luke, and Japanese. At least all three are going decently.
Ha, despite what all my articles on food might lead you to believe, I am still maintaining fewer calories these days. I just spend my calories smarter. Have nearly a month of weight telemetry stored so far. I fed it into Tableau, my favorite visual data analysis software, and hopefully will have an interesting Tufte chart sooner or later to show.
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Your dessert sounds reminiscent of the fabulous, banana-less, cream pie.
ANY reference to jello & dessert in the same breath is a ABOMINATION…HELL NO JELL O