Yosemite

Yosemite was just as beautiful as everyone promised. I have lots of photos. More than I am including here (and here I think I have a lot as it is). M and I enjoyed a restful though adventurous time in a beautiful national park.

I was a little worried about some of the logistics (eating, showering, etc) but my worries were unnecessary. M and I reserved a tent cabin at Curry Camp which was the most affordable option outside of camping on their grounds. And let me tell you these were plush accommodations! Plush! Free hot showers! Lots of food options (in a variety of price-ranges with the most expensive option at the Awahnee Hotel still being quite reasonable if you are from Los Angeles and used to paying through the nose for a really nice restaurant with really good food). Easy and free transportation around Yosemite Valley which is the starting point for most of the hikes. And no internet connection! Which (though disappointing for things like checking the results of the NFL draft or catching up on the Red Sox scores) I think overall was a good thing.

M and I hiked every day and enjoyed some quiet time in the evenings at Curry Camp's lodge reading, writing, knitting, drinking beers, eating chips and people watching. Our first day was a bit of a rough start with choosing a less than optimum hike for us. But we recovered from that quickly and planned better for the remainder of our stay. Day two was a hike to and around Mirror Lake (so lovely!) and day three watched us trudge through the hardest hike of our lives. Well, the hardest hike of my life at least. I think M's goldmine hike will stand as the hardest hike of his life (he'd better not top that one). The park literature stated that it was a 3.2 mile hike up to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls and that it took 6-7 hours to complete round trip. We were pretty confident that we could do this hike and a little foolish in thinking that we could complete it in half the time. But man, oh man was it worth it.

I was sort of hoping that we'd be in Yosemite during a quieter time of year (we're not so fond of the crowds) and I do think that we went before peak season, but it still felt dense with other bodies. I would be surprised if the park wasn't at capacity for visitors this weekend.

One thing I kept wishing was that our fellow visitors would just shut the hell up already. Um, I mean be a little quieter. I don't know. I sort of thought that in the presence of all the magnificent natural beauty, one might be awestruck into a reverent sort of quiet. But one can't account for drunken college students and high school field trip groups can one?

I was also surprised at how many French speaking visitors there were (more than other nationalities, I mean). I think they were all French, I'm not so good at picking out the Canadian French accents from lack of exposure. I did engage in a conversation with a German couple who were puzzling over the ingredients of a garden burger and what exactly was the difference between a plain hamburger and a hamburger combo. I was also asked to explain just exactly what a Philly cheese steak was and if it was recommended.

I'm really sore from all that hiking (especially that last one, the greatest hike of my life (TM)) and have loads of dirty laundry to wash up, oh and work. Yeah that thing. I guess I have to do some work as well. So enjoy the photos and let me know when ya'll are up for a group trip to Yosemite, cause we are definitely going back.


Even the drive to the park is lovely (about an hour away from our destination).


Pacific Dogwood. Not as pretty as their east coast cousins (in my humble opinion) but still lovely.


Day One Hike: Poor Planning.
Dusty and the trail was too close to the main road. This was one of the better parts. We'll know better for the next time we visit.


We followed the signs to El Capitan without realizing that it's more meant for rock climbers and not for us hikers.


Manzanita berries? This tree has the best colors: rich red trunk and branches, silvery green leaves and pink berries.


The river is so green.


The colors are fantastic. Like this bit of chartreuse moss. Who knew that such colors existed naturally?


From the Swinging Bridge.


I just can't stop being amazed by that waterfall.


Tired at the end of our first hike. We opted for the shuttle to drive us back to our tent.


Day Two Hike: Mirror Lake.


Is that snow off the trail?


Yep. Snow.


Someone was having fun with a chain saw.


This one (someone has noted) is over 400 years old.


I was enchanted by all the moss covered rocks.


We took pause as a line of burros and ponies passed us on the trail.


In the time it took me to snap this photograph my toes froze.


Everyone seemed to be interested in taking this photo.


Including this gal who crossed over slippery rocks to shoot her pic.


As we looped the Mirror Lake hike, we stopped off at the stables for a bathroom break. These guys were tethered to a post.


Their friend has the saddest looking ears so I came over to talk to him and see if I could cheer him up.


Day Three Hike: The hardest hike of my like (TM).
From here (about half an hour into the hike) we were impressed at how high we'd climbed so quickly. Hah. Hubris, my friends, hubris was our downfall.


As we got closer to the falls we could feel the spray of water on us and the rushing sound was quite loud.


Postcard photo of the falls with Half Dome.


So impressed was I with our height that I zoomed my lens as far as it would go (12x) and took a photo of the teeny cars on the roads below. Still teeny. We must be up pretty freaking high. We rule.


But we kept climbing. Up lots of slippery steps like this one. They seemed to be never ending.


After lots of cursing and amazement, we reached the top. Sort of. And were amazed by how much it just looks like a forest floor. Note the snow. (I'm an Angeleno. Snow amazes me.)


After 4 hours of hiking, this was the best looking sign I'd ever seen in my life.


I was not prepared for the view. I think I was too tired. My blood sugar was a bit low and my legs were jello. So this part kind of freaked me out. I wasn't feeling terribly confident about my reflexes and general motor skills.


M disappeared over this stony walkway.


On the other side of it, you could see where the water rushes past.


And as it slips down the side of the mountain. (Just looking at these photos again is giving me the willies.)


But if you looked back up the river, there's a bridge. And I wanted to know what that was all about.


So we hiked over to it and looked out at the water tumbling over the cliffs.


But where is it coming from? I mean it's a lot of freaking water that falls down the side of that mountain. Is it a lake? How big is the lake?

Answers to be discovered in our next visit. Because by that time we were both dead tired and starting to get hungry so we had to head back. Unfortunately my knee kind of gave out on me and the descent took much longer than we'd anticipated (making the estimated time of the hike's round trip more accurate). Next time, we plan better and bring more snacks.

vay-cay

We're leaving for Yosemite today and will be back with photos, stories and lots of dirty socks. Have a great weekend and see you on the other side!

here it is

So this has been bugging me all day and now I need to get it off of my chest.

If you ever say Voilà as an American English speaker, please note that there is a V at the beginning of the word and not a W.

Here's an audio example of how to correctly pronounce this word (look for this audio link partway down the page).

Though if you want to be a really anal retentive linguistics nerd, this isn't absolutely correct either for nit-picky reasons like midi files not correctly capturing the tension of the accent at the right moment. But it'll do. Just remember that voila is pronounced with a V not a W. Unless perhaps you are from Austria or Germany and you are speaking English but for that one word. Then I have no reason to correct you. Really I suppose I have no reason to correct you regardless, but that's my problem.

Please carry on with your lives.
Thank you.

today is tuesday

And I'm "in class" learning all manner of things related to websites. It's been good so far. I have several hours yet to go. But during my "lunch break" I was checking my email and found this in my inbox:



How cool is that? If you want to check it out, you can go to ReadyMade's April/May online issues here.

And happy earth day everyone!

food that is pretty and tasty

Pretty

Doesn't this lettuce look like someone painted it?


Or maybe like a petal from an antique rose?


Tasty

It's not brie.


I guess it's a camembert. A goat-cheese camembert. When I asked the farmer's market vendor what it tasted like he said: heaven.

I wouldn't know for myself, but I'm sure it comes quite close.

And I was super excited to see this back on the cheese counter at Whole Foods. I thought they'd stopped carrying it. Perhaps it's a seasonal item?

So good. So sweet. And I enjoy drinking a little red wine out of the jar when the jam's all gone.

help?

Friends,
Can anyone point me to a pizza dough recipe? I've tried a few from different sources with less than stellar results each time. Usually when I try out a new recipe, I can get it spot on (meaning it tastes and looks good) from the first go, but with all the pizza dough recipes I've tried I just get bleh. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I can't blame it on bad yeast every time.

For reference, I've tried recipes from the Joy of Cooking, Martha Stewart Living, Mark Bittman, epicurious.com and the foodnetwork.com. No good.

And I like my pizza dough to be chewy with some bubbles in the crust, a little thinner where the toppings go, but nice and thick and chewy on the ends. Not cakey.

What do you think?

more young@heart

These guys were in town last night to promote their movie!


When I heard that, I rushed to get tickets for us. Wow, the show was awesome! This guy is one of my favorites. He's got such a great energy and spirit. And a lovely lovely voice to boot.


The audience was thrilled to see all the dancing on stage. Especially when the fella in the wheelchair got up to cut a rug. I think we all remembered him being more mobile in the film and so it was a little surprising to see him in a wheelchair, and then was doubly thrilling to see him up and kicking it.


The band was also great. Such talented bunch of musicians!


(Blurry photos. But I didn't want to annoy the theatre goers behind me (all 3 rows of them) with all my photo taking, so I had to keep it quick and infrequent.)

There are some fun videos on youtube as well if anyone's interested. When M and I got home last night, we couldn't stop watching them. Seriously if you hear that these guys have a gig near you, go out and see it. you won't be disappointed. Good times, people, good times.

I've gone and joined a book club

Always on the search for new books to sink my teeth into, I checked out npr's book section online. They have a nice selection of reviews and recommendations from their staff, other writers and even librarians with rock star status.

The Bryant Park Project just started a book club (I'm a month behind) so I decided to join in. This month's book is Aryn Kyle's The God of Animals. I'm about 40 pages in so far and I'm enjoying it. It's a pleasant read of a young girl whose family runs a horse ranch. Haven't read far enough to get more of a sense of the plot, but I can see already that this will not be a drudgery to get through (unlike, say: The Dubliners. Was it The Dubliners? Oh dear god, I just couldn't get past page 16 with that guy spinning yarns o'er and o'er again. But I think I should give it another go, just to be fair. James Joyce is so revered and all, etc, etc.)

Also, I'm kind of enjoying not knowing too much about this book and discovering the story on my own time as it unfolds during my readings.

Anyways. Book club convenes online May 2 to discuss this book.

lovely

Isn't she lovely? I saw her on Garance Doré and I'm not sure if she's a friend of Garance or just someone she saw on the streets. She look so natural and doesn't look like she's trying too hard to be trendy or fashionable, just classic.

Image from Garance Doré

PS. New keyboard!

arroz con pollo

Edited to add: Those green olives that the arroz con pollo recipe calls for? Totally figured it out. I think. After eating this for lunch four days in a row, the rice and meat get ultra rich. It's still good, but rich. So the green olives help to break up the richness so that it's not quite so overpowering. Shazam. I guess those folks at epicurious.com know what they're doing after all.

Tough day today.

Quarters jammed in the laundry machine which lead to an argument with the property management office guy who answers their phones (his name is Ed. He's rather special. I call him Special Ed. Not to his face, um on the phone, I mean.) about when the quarters would be emptied from the machine. I'd already called and asked about the jammed quarters yesterday and I am running out of underpants. Do not mess with me Special Ed.

Then I spilled coffee on my keyboard (I'm writing this from M's laptop. Which is a glorified word processor. So I can't get any work done on my computer. Which is where all my files and graphic design programs are stored.). I went at it with a Q-tip and hairdryer on the cool setting. I think it's going well. At least when I hit the disk drive eject button now it doesn't ask me if I really want to shut down.

Anyone know how long it takes for a keyboard to dry out?

The good news is that I don't take my coffee with sugar and I didn't spill that much on it, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If it's still no go tomorrow, I will find myself at the apple store purchasing a new keyboard.

Then I decided that what I really wanted to do more than anything else is to make some Indian rice pudding. Hm. I think I may have wasted 5 1/2 cups of milk. That recipe is a little wonky. Cookers beware. As I was not. Seriously 5 1/2 cups of milk to 1/3 cup of basmati rice?? What the hell was I thinking? I even read the reviews and one of the reviewers pointed that discrepancy out. Though little good that did me.

Let's just move on to other things. Like arroz con pollo.

There's this really good cook in my neighborhood. I think it's a she. And I think she lives in the building next door to mine. At around 4:30pm or so every night, there are these amazing smells that waft through the air. For the most part they smell like some incredible Chinese banquet or a really good Japanese restaurant, today it smelled a little like some marvelous chutney. It always smells good. And when I used to come home from work ready to get my meals started, I'd feel a little competitive let-down thinking that awesome food smells don't come out of my apartment nearly as often. M would sometimes wistfully agree.

Since I've been home I've been cooking more. And the other night just home from work, totally unsolicited, M says: whenever I walk up the stairs to our place it always smells incredible.

Take THAT good-food-smelling-neighborhood-cooker!

I made this for dinner last night but forgot to take a photo of it then. So I had it again for lunch today and snapped a pic for your viewing pleasure. Still tasted mighty fine, but I think it looked better last night when it was right out of the pot. I've bookmarked this dish for a company dinner. That's kind of a southern thing to say. You know, when you have company over for dinner. Do yanks say that?

Anyways, it's nice cause you can do all the prep ahead of time and then time it so that it's sitting cooking as your guests arrive and have drinks. Then a few minutes later it's ready to serve. Tasty as all get out and can stand alone as a one pot meal. Though of course we do like to have extra veggies M and I.

So I created something that I am calling greens n' beans. The greens being some chopped up kale cooked the way I usually cook my greens (with chopped up onions and garlic, in a little bacon grease if you have it or olive oil is okay too, sheesh, splash of apple cider vinegar plus salt and pepper) then I threw in a can of black beans liquids and all and let the kale finish cooking with the lid on.

I used this recipe for the arroz con pollo which I thought was quite good. I followed it pretty faithfully with the exception of the pimientos and probably a few less olives than what the recipe called for. Not so sure about those olives. They just don't seem to add anything to the dish. And I can't imagine that the pimientos would do much for it either other than add a splash of color. I might just dice up some carrots and throw that in towards the end instead. Though I don't believe that this dish is lacking for visual interest.

Eating this last night made me think of andres. Pepito, I distinctly remember you lamenting one night in Bordeaux that you had this crazy craving for arroz con pollo and you looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested we try making it. Because you declared that oh no, it's much too hard jeanjeanah. Ahhh, I miss those days. And pepito? It wasn't that hard. Or just come over and I'll make some for you.