Cheesy fail

Sur la Table was selling a DIY mozzarella kit at abour $10 less than the kit at Williams-Sonoma. What can I say, I certainly couldn't pass up a chance to make my own cheese!

Things started out okay... I warmed up a gallon of milk and added the citric acid and rennet as directed. But maybe the milk cooked too long, maybe I stirred things too much, but whatever I ended up with, it sure wasn't cheese.

The kit...

The gallon...

The agents...

The whey...

The curds...

The fail...

I'll stick to buying my mozzarella from the store!

hello thrifty

I am not a fan of wearing Hello Kitty on my person. Oh sure, I used to work for the mouthless cat. I still have a few stickers lying around and she is my go-to when I need a present for a young girl. But if I need or want to dress up with a Sanrio character, give me Keroppi or Chococat. Hello Kitty is too girly.

I am also not big on wearing the American flag. I have seen so many bad sartorial attempts on Old Glory - from oversized blouses to a five-year old's finger painting on nasty denim cutoffs - that I have simply written it off. No, a tasteful representation of the old Stars and Strips cannot be found on clothing.

Then, of all places, JCPenney laid both taboos to rest with this shirt.

Somehow these hearts and stripes feel vaguely like the US flag without being overpoweringly so. And Hello Kitty helps to break up the solid lines with, well, her cuteness, all without being too princessy. It's my new favorite tee, and I'll be proudly wearing this in Colombia.

Somehow, through the magic of Mr. Penney, this $10 shirt only cost me $5. Woohoo!

sew ready

In preparation for the upcoming Star Wars night at AT&T Park on Labor Day, I've borrowed a sewing machine from Speedy to make my R2D2 costume. Now I won't be creating the dress from scratch since that is much too difficult for someone who has never sewn anything more complex than a quilt. But I'm positive that I'm capable of applique-ing blue scraps of cloth to a pre-made white dress. I just want this to look a little more polished than my hand-sewn Marge Simpson costume.

So I've succeeded in threading the machine. What's next, you crafty chingra?

Third time's a charm

It was only our third time at Elephant and Castle's trivia night. We went past 4th. We zoomed past 3rd. We skipped 2nd place and for the first time ever, the team known as "I'm Rick James, bitch!" landed in 1st place! That resulted in a prize of $50 off the bar tab, which was well received by the team.

The questions started out easy, maybe too easy... who is the youngest daughter in the Simpsons family? What breed is Uggie from "The Artist"? We stumbled in the third and fifth round, the fifth being the infamously obscure music trivia round. And then the sixth and final round ended. Quizmaster read the answers and I tallied that we got 8 out of 10 correct. I added 8 to our score for a total of 52 and grimaced as Quizmaster announced that the third place team racked up 52 points. Oh well, third place again isn't shabby at all.

But Rick James wasn't called. Nor was he called for second place with 56 points.

Then as Quizmaster called out the many people that comprise Rick James, I remwmbered that the points in the last round are always doubled.

We had 60 points. And for the umpteenth time of the night, Elephant and Castle resounded with the screams and cheers of that table in the back.

Yes we were loud, but what would you have done about it? I'm Rick James, bitch!

the world should come to the classiest ballpark in the States

San Francisco will be hosting the finals of the 2013 World Baseball Classic! I always wondered why MLB awarded a World Series to a team that only played in the contiuous 48 States and sometimes Toronto... then this little e-mail came along! Wish I'd known about the World Baseball Classic sooner.

Given the Giants' strong showing in the All-Star Game, can we expect to see some black and orange in Team USA?

U.S. VENUES FOR 2013 WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC ANNOUNCED AT&T Park Will Host Semi-Finals and Finals World Baseball Classic, Inc. today announced the United States venues for the 2013 World Baseball Classic, which will be played at sites throughout the world in March. San Francisco will make its debut as a host city for the World Baseball Classic, succeeding San Diego's PETCO Park (2006) and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (2009) as the host of the Semi-Finals and Finals. Miami's Marlins Park will be a second-round host venue, and the homes of the D-backs, Chase Field and Salt River Fields, will serve as host venues for the first round. International venues that will host 2013 World Baseball Classic games, pool composition and game dates will be announced in the weeks ahead. Complete coverage | World Baseball Classic

as good as gay paree

Admittedly, it has been difficult finding a good macaron. Rarely have I actually had a bad one but, well, after eating palm-sized macarons in Paris, it's hard to find some in San Francisco that can compare.

So let it be no surprise that I had to leave the city limits to find an equitable macaron! Masse's Bakery on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley is the place to go not just for perfectly textured macarons but also innovative flavors. You'll never find a mango-flavored macaron in Paris but here, it's just the flavor du jour.

Clockwise from top: Violet cassis, apricot, mango, and raspberry.

The extra nice touch is that when I asked for iced tea, the girl behind the counter actually brewed me some black tea - steeping loose leaf tea leaves for a proper amount of time - before adding ice. This is no ready-made iced tea, this is real refreshment and I could taste the difference. Perfect for a swelteringly sunny Saturday.

il divo

If you need to make your mother happy, treat her to  a show with the beautiful quartet Il Divo! We had to drive all the way down to San Jose to the Civic Auditorium since it's one freeway exit away from the hp pavilion, it's certainly not a journey we haven't taken before.

The staff at the Civic Auditorium appear to be considerably older than those at other venues and weren't as proactive when it came to playing usher. As a result, we and many other people played the seat shuffle as we struggled to find our real seats. But eventually everyone found their place and the Armani-clad heroes of popera entered.

Many a back of someone's head...
a clue to the median age of crowd at the concert.
What can I say, popera panders to a certain demographic.

Sing me "Passera" anytime!

Sebastien, Urs, Carlos, and David take a bow.

The greatest question of the night: Why did Urs wear driving gloves after the intermission? The second half is when the men shook hands with any woman who came to the front... is the Swissman a germophobe?

eat first, talk later

On a very sunny Saturday my lovely Tater Tot had a craving for Indian food. After showing off her new wheels (mobility is key!) we headed off to Vik's Chaat Corner/Chaat and Market on 4th Street and Channing in Berkeley. The Chaat part is a large cafeteria-style eatery with a pretty good selection of Indian street food and entrees, both vegetarian- and meat-friendly.

The dosa is a little crispy on one side and a little chewy on the other, and stuns with the length of the pastry sticking out past the plate. I liked it but Tater would've preferred it if the dosa was filled with potatoes instead of a cauliflower mix. What can I say, Tater knows her taters.

I only had a spoonful of the chicken biryani and didn't find it particularly flavorful, but judging by Tater's sigh of defeat, it must've been filling.

The potato and spice-filled samosa cholle plate was delicious, as expected. I don't think I've ever had a bad samosa, but I did like the garbanzo bean sauce thing on the side. Whaddya know, they found a way to make garbanzo beans taste good without turning it into hummus!

My absolute favorite was the lamb baida roti, or a very hearty bread pocket filled with very tasty ground lamb. I've never been a fan of the smell of lamb meat but that wasn't a problem with this good ol' (just a little) greasy dish. Yum, I would love to have another one of these right about now.

After lunch we peeked into the small market and found spices that Trader Joe's doesn't have (whole cloves, ground nutmeg, cardamom pods) at pretty good prices. Looking for whole star anise? You'll find it here, along with a pickled version of every fruit and vegetable imaginable sold in a can. Quite literally, you can bring a taste of Vik's Chaat Corner home.

a new galaxy

I'm trying something new today... I'm blogging from my new smrtphone! The process is slower and more unwieldy than my good old desktop but I think it's about time I tried something from this millenium.

There are issues... nothing makes me realize how much I love traditional keyboards than my amateur smartphone typing "skills." Or the fact that I accidentally deleted the photo I uploaded earlier and I can't find the equivalent of CTRL+Z on this smartphone. Also, I don't know how to copy and paste so I probably won't be linking each post to the blog's facebook page over the phone.

My new Galaxy and my old Chocolate...
re-added via my trusty desktop computer after the above mishap.

Anyways, on to other things. My beloved chocolate phone began to run out of battery power every night, leaving me with one less alarm for the morning. Well, I guess 4 years is a good run for a second generation mobile phone. So yesterday I asked a friend for advice and marched into the Verizon store. This girl was on a mission and nothing was going to stop her!

After many questions and a short tutorial, I left with the Samsung Galaxy S3. I picked the Galaxy for the awesome camera because frankly, if I'm going to spend this much money, I want this device to do double duty. Perhaps even triple duty as a backup computer, but first I'll need some more practice on this tiny keyboard.

By the way, this old camera was purchased in 2005. Replacing a 4-year old phone and a 7-year old camera in one go ain't half bad!

The limited-edition Harajuku Girls camera designed by Gwen Stefani,
when her first solo album made her my idol.
Picture taken by my smartphone!

(And now more text from the comfort of my equally-old PC...)

There's a lot to learn, and a lot of connections I never wanted but I'll need to accept in order to use the smartphone. For one, Verizon/Android/something insisted I sync my gmail account if I want to use blogger on my phone. That sucks because my gmail account is not my principal account and I really use it just to blog. Also, syncing two email accounts with my phone added a lot of unnecessary "contacts," most without phone numbers and therefore something I would not consider a contact. It also brought back citizens of my very old address book, some people with whom I haven't had contact in over ten years and others whom I don't even remember. I guess I was lucky that I only had to delete 200... well, not quite. My phone says I cannot delete "read-only" contacts. Well as my phone, I'll tell you who I want to delete, and you'll like it!

This whole connectivity thing also unevenly dug up photos associated with my two blogs and loaded them into picasa, which I have never used but must be owned by google because why else would they mysteriously appear on my phone? And for some unknown reason, I cannot upload photos I took with my phone to blog posts I made with my phone unless I accept and add google+. Fine, google, collect my information and use it for your evil plans. Just let me hide in a cave when you take over the world.

Last complaint: why does every new phone come with predictive text turned on? And why are they making it more difficult to turn it off by making you weave through a convoluted tribulation of settings? Honestly, who actually needs predictive text? I don't need to accidentally send a message about "sex" when all I wanted to say that "texting is hard" on my new phone!

But really, after just over 24 hours I think I am warming up to the oversized phone. With this I'll be able to snap pictures more easily while I travel and blog (albeit poorly) on the road. I can check my email at any time, though I certainly don't feel the urge to. But the important thing is that the option is there. And, I've waited so long to get a smartphone that Angry Birds is free!

the gritty truth

What's for dinner? Why come to Beachside Cafe, my friends! And that's just what we did.

Speedy chose the fish & chips... the fish fillets fell apart at the touch of a fork. The fries are the soft and salty sort, not the crispy shoestrings type that kids go crazy for. All in all, this plate got a thumbs from Speedy.

Driver tried the chicken and waffles, my Beachside favorite, for the first time. Everyone agreed that these superbly breaded chicken cutlets beat out Little Skillet's fried chicken and waffles.

Snapshot and I both tried the beer-can chicken, marinated in Guinness beer and served with brussel sprouts and cheesy bacon grits. The chicken was pretty good and had an intriguingly savory flavor. The brussel sprouts were not bitter (yes!) and once again, the grits survived my appetite. There's something about that incarnation of cornmeal that really fills you up... as Driver laughed, he used to think grits were prison food.

Oh, what would my cousins in Georgia think of that!

if neon was a color...

In a break from my recent trend of orange shoes, I fell in love with this waterfall hue of Converse sneakers. To make it more, er, me, I got a pack of neon shoelaces. Quite spiffy, don't you think?

Now my feet can dress up like watermelons!

donuts

I love donuts!

Dynamo Donuts now has an outpost in the Financial District... just stop by Soup Junkie's Market Street storefront in the morning for delectable goodies such as this bacon maple donut!

Start your day off with a smile.
Eat a donut.

this is real

For only the classiest Comic-Con fans, ticketmaster and GameStop are selling seats for the very short tour featuring The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses. I would go just to see what it's all about but since tickets are about $75 and up, I'll leave this to those who live and breathe it.

I know the music played an integral part to the gameplay of everyone's favorite title OoT but a professional concert is, well, pretty hardcore. I wonder if guests will dress up... as a Cucco? A Skull Child? Or maybe everyone will follow suit and come in coattails like Shigeru Miyamoto.

Whatever the dress code, attendees should come prepared in case the music causes it to rain, to change from day to night and vice versa, or to take listeners back to their seven years ago... when they were probably playing Zelda!

she's a brick house

In a break from our usual ballpark rituals, the gang decided to eat at Brickhouse Cafe on Brannan Street. The prices are comparable to those in the ballpark but the quality of food is so much better!

The Brickhouse Cafe claims to be the home of the "Big Ass Burger." Well, it tastes good but it's not large, certainly nothing to advertise about... the crispy fries are what they should be promoting! But when you have flavor like this, size doesn't matter (much.)

For brunch, I had the Mexican burger: a jalapeño-studded beef patty topped with pico de gallo, jack cheese, avocado, and sour cream, all piled in a soft and buttery bun. I must say that I really love the sour tang of the pico de gallo against the fatty richness of the avocado and sour cream. I've had many southwest- or tex-mex-inspired burgers but this flavor combination seemed fresh compared to the others I've tasted.

Wary of spicy food? The jalapeños don't add any heat to the patty. Avoiding fat? There's not a lot of sour cream and avocados pack that "good" vegetable fat your body craves. Still daunted by the so-called big ass size? Want a veggie patty instead? All acceptable substitutes are suggested on the menu.

The drink menu at Brickhouse looks pretty good... there are various cocktails with Western-themed twists and beer on tap at both the upstairs bar and the main bar on the ground floor. I stupidly did not order any of these glorious libations; instead I persuaded two of my friends to get the housemade ginger ale. I have fond memories of sipping a very strong and bubbly homemade ginger ale in Dublin in Temple Square, complete with little ginger shavings at the bottom of the glass.

The Brickhouse does NOT serve this sort of wonderful gingery soda stuff. All I remember is a light coral-colored flavorless club soda placed in front of me. What a shame that they advertise this atrocity as housemade. I must be more cautious of associating travel memories with items of the same name in local restaurants, and I must drink some ginger beer now to push the awful memory of the "ginger ale" out.

Good burgers and (one) bad drink. That's the Brickhouse.

"healthy"

So says the team on what Madison Bumgarner's bobblehead would say if he could speak. The comment is in response to the Madison's favorite question "How are the cows doing?"

I am really impressed by how much this bobblehead resembles the young lefty. The detail on the scruff is fantastic, as is the signature pose for the star pitcher. Bobbleheads have come a long way!

But before I unwrapped the figure at home, my friends and I sweated in our seats as the Giants attempted a sweep against the Astros. All eyes were on perfect-game-Matt Cain as he led the Giants through two-thirds of the game. His pitching was good, but it could've been better.


The offense warmed up, even without everyone's favorite milkman Melky Cabrera. The team scored two runs in just the first inning and Buster hit 3 for 4 at-bats. Panda also stepped up to the plate and kept the crowd roaring with a double.

The game turned into a nail-biter in the 9th as Santiago Casillas allowed a runner on base. But we finally shut down the Astros and achieved a feat that impels grown men to wave brooms.

SWEEP!

Now if only it was just as easy to get rid of this minor sunburn... my foremarms and half of my forehead are a scandalous shade of red!

the smallest pho

Like-minded co-workers set me on the path to Soup Junkie, the brand new soup counter on Market Street. This little hole-in-the-wall boasts long lines, MSG-free soup, and great reviews. Here's mine...

While my friends opted for the crab-and-tomato bún riêu, I wanted to try the beef pho because that is the standard... sort of like the margherita pizza of the soup world. There's a lot to love about the bowl... super-tender beef swim in a flavorful and slightly sweet broth spiked with a lime juice. That broth... it rivals Turtle Tower's soup. Soup Junkie should bottle that stuff!

As good as the pho is, it is a lunch I will not be indulging in every week. This is the smallest bowl of pho I have ever feasted on but it is also the most expensive at $9. Now that's still not a lot compared to other lunch options but as far as pho goes, this is a pricey bowl. The portion wouldn't seem so small if there was more beef but bites of tender beef flank were few and far between.

Nevertheless, Soup Junkie's beef pho is worth a try. You won't regret slurping up all that delicious broth, which is just what we all need on foggy summer days like these.

microclimates

The heat wave across the Midwest and East Coast, the fires in Colorado... even the 100-degree-topping temperatures in the inland areas of the Bay Area (how's that for an oxymoron?) are making the news.

And then there's little old me, living right next to the ocean and for half the day, blissfully ignorant of any sunshine. My house is wrapped in a cozy blanket of fog, and that's the way I like it.

The exact border between fog and sunshine varies each day but it's always a very clear line that I cross on the commute to and from work. The gate to misty moors of Scotla, er, San Francisco can be as far west as 33rd Avenue and east as the Masonic-Presidio tunnel (referencing Richmond district landmarks.)

new record

This might be my personal best for knitting a blanket... I started this blue striped beauty in April, setting an even more ambitious deadline for early May to give to my sister for her wedding. Well, I only had one-third finished by the big day and my loving sister had no interest for such things in Los Angeles. So I decided to keep it for myself but keep knitting and see how quickly I could finish a throw (my last project took me almost a year to complete! And Mumsy keeps it in a box under the bed!)

Not only did I complete this blanket in just over three months (finishing just yesterday) I believe that this is also the largest blanket I have ever knit... I can lay down comfortably on it and not touch the floor so I know that it's at least 65 inches long.

This blanket is staying with me and will grace my convertible sofa, where it will be seen!

Well, there's no break for me. Not that knitting is a chore, I enjoy it quite a bit (otherwise I wouldn't knit!) But my dear friend Chikorita is already 5 months pregnant with a baby boy and I'm set on knitting a baby blanket to resemble the flag of Peru (the homeland of both parents.) The yellow border is supposed to be that gold rim you sometimes see on some flags... well, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I've only seen gold fringe on flags of the USA. Looks like Peru is getting the royal treatment from me!

Just gettin' crafty. Again.

the slipperiest noodle

The perfect remedy for cleaning house on a foggy weekend? San Francisco's best pho from Turtle Tower (this is the Geary Boulevard location in the Richmond.)

The tender beef! The rich and onion-y broth! The wide yet slippery noodles!

Wait a minute, these noodles weren't always this wide. Oh who am I kidding, I love a good noodle and this one slips and slurps in the most satisfying way. I only add a squeeze of lime to brighten the beef-heavy bowl; otherwise, this pho is perfect.

A regular or small-sized bowl (pictured) will set you back less than $7. And Turtle Tower is now issuing loyalty cards that can be linked to your e-mail and smartphone and all manner of that portable technology. Eat ten bowls of pho and get one free! This is a reward that won't take long to earn.

And that extra special something that makes a place so memorable? Turtle Tower has a table for two right in front of the wheelchair-accessible door to the restrooms. Ick and equal-access factors aside, this is pretty funny. It turns out that the entrance to the restroom is just around the corner. But I still wouldn't want to sit there!

summertime

Ever since I was a child, nothing has signaled the beginning of summer like the end of school, bowls overflowing with strawberries, and a thick coating of fog enveloping my neighborhood.

Well, I've been out of school for four years now and the fog has finally pushed its way through this heat wave. The strawberries have been plentiful as they always peak around my birthday but they're even sweeter when a surplus arrives at the store and they go on sale for $1 per pound.

However, surplus strawberries aren't always perfect. What to do when some of the bunch are not as firm as you'd like? Turn them into a smoothie! You can't tell the original texture when it's liquefied!

I like to mix my strawberries with unflavored yogurt, the nice and tangy kind. Right now I'm loving French Village yogurt from Trader Joe's but use any that you prefer. Sometimes I add a few blackberries to the mix but not too much; blackberries have a strong flavor and a little goes a long way.

Before...

... and after!

GIR, ride the pig!

So a little alien told his companion on a long-gone Nickelodeon cartoon known as Invader Zim.

Now this isn't a pig that most people can ride but I think it is just as nifty... this summertime miniature pig-shaped grill from Cost Plus World Market is as useful as it is kitschy and adorable. The terra cotta piggy is available only in stores and I snagged the last one on the display. These little piggies are selling like hotcakes!

The pig itself fits in a loving embrace and at my estimate, the small grill can cook 2 small hamburger patties or a handful of hot dogs at a time. Or a plateful of little smokies. The point is that this little piggy is meant to cook for a little party. Most reviews on Cost Plus's website give the little oinker 5 stars and rave that the charcoal-powered grill is perfect for cooking for two.

Now that piggy is finally out of my trunk and in the giddy arms of my friend who just bought a new condo, piggy will most likely spend the Fourth of July sunning himself or herself (she hasn't named it yet) on the small patio and cooking a hot dog or two.

And me? I'll be hoping that Cost Plus World Market gets another shipment of these because at just $25 a pig, I want a whole farm.