Tuesday, December 13, 2011

walkabout #1_8.11.2011

A jpg of the corner of 14th and Noe in my neighborhood.  Note the fluffy trees that line both sides of Noe Street between Duboce Ave and Market St., making it beautiful to walk along.


Here is a small corner market at the corner of 14th and Noe.  They make good sandwiches & sell bottled water and pomegranates, which are in season if I am not mistaken.

A mural on the walls of McKinley elementary school, on Divisadero St. and 14th St.  The word "Respect" there mirrors a tattoo on the back of the bald head of a character in Nicolas Winding Refn's film Pusher.

A staircase in the neighborhood off of Roosevelt Way that I did not know existed.  That is why I love it so much. Duboce triangle is full of such surprises.

I made this jpg on the fly, by instinct.  I think what caught my eye, in hindsight, was the similarities between these three buildings.

A view looking south to the intersection of Castro St. and Market St.  I like the Muni bus cut in half there, and the homes in the distant haze.

Here is a special effect jpg of a few forms off of Market Street, above Castro.  Turn the corner and walk a block down to the post office.

Dog scene in front of Bi-Rite, on 18th street near Guererro St.  The owner of these two pooches appeared right after and shot me a puzzled glance.  I felt a touch of impropriety, though I am no dog papparazzi.  I do like them, though.
A cafe on Folsom St. near 17th St. that we'd like to check out.





Friday, October 14, 2011

Camera blues

     I am looking out at the view through our back window here on Walter.  The morning sun reflects very brightly off of the white wood panelled wall of the apartment left of ours, prompting me to squint my eyes.  The inter web claims that today will be the warmest day of the week, so I have decided to take advantage of this warmth and make four rounds of country sourdough bread.  I mixed the leaven late last night, and and now wait for it to rise and increase in bulk by twenty percent.  This process was supposed to happen overnight, but sadly, it did not.  I know not why.  Every time I try and make the leaven overnight, I encounter the same situation, and so I invariably have to coax rising by setting it out in direct morning sunlight, or by warming it in a proof box.  Once the ambient temperature reaches eighty degrees, the leaven suddenly comes to life and does its thing.  From the look of things, I may have to resort to this method once again.  According to the book, the leaven should rise with the room temperature at sixty five degrees.  I'm quite sure this room was at least that, but still, no activity.  The problem with having to manually encourage the leaven is that it takes time, usually several hours.  A delay in the baking process typically means postponing or pushing back other activities planned for the afternoon.  It also results in a late evening baking period.  Swimming, for instance, may be pushed into tomorrow.  Shopping for a camera to replace Julie's Nikon dSLR, which was so rudely stolen from our apartment early Monday afternoon.
     I left the apartment at about one in the afternoon to buy produce at Rainbow market, a co-op about ten minutes away by bicycle.  The main need was unbleached and whole wheat bread flour.  I also picked up Stumptown coffee, walnuts, raisins, bananas, a red pepper, salsa, Good Belly juice, butter, milk, and eggs.  As is my modus when in Rainbow, I freely wandered about the market, investigating kitchen wares, snack foods, kombucha.  I was in no rush.  Fair trade coffee beans sold in bulk attracted my interest.  I did not know they sold these beans.  I nuzzled the dark espresso roast bin, dragging deeply.  The smell filled my nose with its strong, earthy, coffeehouse richness.  My mind pondered the decision to change beans, a very weighty and serious decision in San Francisco.  Riddled with political landmines indeed.  I had already passed over Sightglass for Stumptown.  An actual double passover would have set a coffee buying precedent and raised many a brow.  Ultimately, I skipped it.  Instead, I grabbed several post cards and headed for the register.  Popcorn.  I forgot popcorn, I informed the cashier.  She responded with words that I had trouble understanding, as she spoke so softly.  I believe she said that she'd wait while I run to grab the popcorn, but i didn't want to gum up the works and decided to pay for the popcorn separately.  This took more time.  I was taking my time that afternoon because I knew that my backpack would be burdensome and was not looking forward to the ride back to the apartment.  The minor graded hills become tiresome when weighed down by twenty to thirty pounds of bulky foodstuff.
     I rode back to Walter Street, and after setting my backpack on the sidewalk I stored my bike down in the basement corridor.  At the front door, I noticed something peculiar:  a corner of my black Adidas windbreaker was wedged between the door and the door jamb, right below the top lock.  I also saw a crack on the door edge several inches below the top lock.  This was peculiar.  I don't remember closing the door on the jacket when I left.  And what is the deal with that crack, was that always there?  Never noticed this before.  Unusual.  I proceeded to unlock the door, starting with the bottom door knob first, followed by the top key lock.  Typically, when I turn the key to the top lock, the door opens with a slight push of the foot below.  But now the door refused to open and seemed wedged shut.  I tried once more before putting my shoulder into the effort.  With the added force, the door opened.  That was very strange, I thought to myself.  I feel like I just broke into my own apartment.
     Looking down at the door as I entered, I saw that the wood around the bottom lock was split and splintering away.  Now that is Alarming.  Once I stepped inside the apartment, I saw that the two top drawers of the built in hutch on the right wall were pulled out.  Did I leave those open?  Nish, nish.  I turned into the living room and entered our bedroom.  I discovered of Julie's makeup pouches on the floor with its contents spilled out.  Top drawers were pulled out with contents disturbed.  My hats thrown to the floor, along with an empty leather wallet that I had just bought.  I looked and saw that the forty six dollars that was on my bedside table was gone.  It can't be.  Turning back toward the living room, I saw that the Nikon camera bag was sitting on the couch, open and empty.  But camera was on the kitchen table, I knew, and I quickly stepped over to the hallway entrance to have a clear view down the hall.  I saw what I already knew.  The camera was gone.  Stolen.  The truth hit me.  We've been burgled.
     The first time I had ever been robbed, I was in junior high school. I had worked a paper route for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune delivering newspapers to front doors with backhand and forehand paper throws.  I dragged myself out of bed before sunrise on week-ends and after school on weekdays. I braved inclement weather, a vicious black dog, and several mean German shepherds that would chase me down the block and make me scream for my mother on numerous occasions.  With time and routine, I had managed to save enough money to make the first major individual purchase of my teenage life:  A bright blue Schwinn beach cruiser.  My dream was to have foot pegs on the front axle and impress the local girls so they'd take rides on my handlebars over to the Thrifty on the corner for thirty five cent double cylindrical scoops of ice cream.  That was the dream.  So I bought the bike, and felt very proud of myself.
     I was also excited about the newfound mobility I would be enjoying, and one week-end my brother and I decided to bike to watch a double feature at the local cinema a few miles away.  We didn't have a proper lock and improvised with our dog's chain leash.  This will be strong enough to keep our bikes safe.  My brother had just bought a bmx bike as well.  The movies were Excalibur and Clash of the Titans, summer popcorn flicks we were both thrilled about seeing.  We rode to the theater and locked our bikes to a nearby pole, catching sight of a few local boys our age admiring our new rides.  We felt like knights.  We saw the movies.  Chain mail, armor, swordplay, wizardry, flying horses.  All made lasting impressions on our boyhood imaginations.  After the movie, we walked out into bright sunlight and to our utter dismay found a snipped dog chain on the ground where our shiny new bikes once were locked.  I don't remember how we got home.  I do remember my father being astonishingly furious that I had lost a bike that he did not even pay for.  I was so hurt that I decided to run away.  I stormed out and walked and walked, for hours and hours, until my thoughts and my hunger forced me to turn back.
     There have been other times since then where I've been victimized by thieves, be it due to my own folly or not.  I had my wallet stolen from a locker at Twenty Four Hour fitness center on Van Ness and Post a few years back.  I was confident that the inexpensive, low security combination lock that was essentially begging to be broken into was strong enough to safeguard my things.  I had bought that wallet in Barcelona ten years ago.  It was well made, black leather with brown on the edges-the perfect size.  Nine dollars in it.  A pity.  I miss that wallet.  On another occasion, I lost a bike at the same fitness center.  It was locked right outside the front entrance one evening, and I found my U lock in shards after a long three hour workout.  The bike was bought used on Craigslist, and wasn't the greatest.  It still sucked to lose it, to be victimized by a crook that you never see and have no way of capturing red handed.  When I lived on Funston in the Richmond district, I lost two mountain bikes at once.  Both were Craigslist purchases, one a low model Specialized, the other a beautiful blue high end Trek 6000 that a fellow sold for a song at $185.
     I rushed out like a madman when it appeared on the list, and when I bought it felt that I had somehow beat the System, stuck it to the Man.  In truth, I was just buying a used bike from a dude who needed quick cash, his back somehow up against it.  Not my business.  I cherished that bike, however, and rode it all over Marin headlands on warm summer days, feeling happy and strong.  So when I woke up one morning to learn that the garage door had malfunctioned and opened in the night, resulting in the loss of another blue bike, I understandably did not feel happy of myself.  I felt sad and disheartened mainly because I believed that loss could have been avoided.  I knew that the garage door had been acting up beforehand, so if I had been more prudent, I would have at least locked my bikes to a garage beam or post.  Even so, to this day, I still do not lock my bike to an immovable part of the structure here at Walter.  It sits down in the corridor below me, my unbreakable Kryptonite NY U-lock dangling heavily from it's handlebar.
     The most physically traumatic theft happened back during my five year east coast sojourn when I was living in a sketchy part of Washington, DC.  I was on my way back from a show at the Corcoran art school where my photographer friend David Estes had pictures up.  I had had more than a few free glasses of wine, and was still quite a bit tipsy when I stepped off the bus and began walking the four or five blocks to the apartment.  Night had already fallen, and so the street was shadowy and dimly lit.  I was also oblivious to the sounds in my immediate surroundings due to the Walkman headphones I had decided to listen to while walking.  If I had not been wearing those headphones, I may have heard the sneaky mugger who crept up behind me, grabbed me by the neck and yanked me backward into an alley.  The sudden backward force made me lose my balance, which was already impaired due to the wine, making it easy for my assailant to drag me into the alley.  Just give me your wallet, he quietly said into my ear, his forearms locking more tightly around my neck.    I gave him my blue nylon Velcro surfer wallet.  Nine dollars and a California driver's license.  I did not know what else he was carrying and did not want to take a chance on my life.  He released me, and vanished down the alley.  My headphones hung jankily from my head.  I stood up, straightened out the earpieces, and walked the rest of the way home.  I remember the song playing in my head when I was mugged that night.  Against All Odds, by Phil Collins.  Whenever I hear that song, however, it does not evoke memories of the mugging, oddly enough.  Senior Prom.  Memories of being seventeen and wearing a tuxedo with tails for the first time ever.
     Blue colored things seem to be stolen from me a fair amount of the time in my life.  Two blue bikes, a blue wallet.  Well, three things isn't exactly much.  I'm fairly certain I've lost more than three.  Blue jeans, perhaps.  Blue pens, blue socks.  A blue hat, blue keys.  We didn't lose anything blue last Monday.  We lost something blue green, though, and made of silk.  My Japanese robe was stolen.  That's as personal as they got with me.  Julie, on the other hand, lost her Macbook pro laptop filled with music and memories from university.  This loss left her in tears.  For obvious reasons, it was much more upsetting than losing the Nikon, which can always be replaced.  The laptop was invaluable, and a great loss.  My robe, though not so invaluable, was in its own way an acute loss.  I had felt lucky when I bought it in Kyoto at a flea market beside a Buddhist shrine.  I remember seeing it on a table piled high with silk robes, and when I held it up, I gazed at its color and design.  It was a beautiful robe, one that stood out among the rest.  I asked for the price, and couldn't believe my ears.  European tourists hovered behind my shoulder, hoping that I'd set it back into the pile.  I didn't.  I should have worn this robe more regularly, instead of hiding it away so much in my closet, a dragon hoarding his golden treasure.  Japanese robe, laptop, forty six dollars, Nikon camera, Forever stamps.  I just remembered that I've lost a camera in the past, my father's Canon AE1.  It was not actually stolen, though.  I forgot it on a seat riding the metro subway in DC.  As the train rolled away from the station, I realized my mistake.
     Our thief had pushed this big computer monitor forward and downward in order to get to the rear compartments of this desk.  That's where they found the stamps.  Why stamps?  It's troubling to think that a criminal had either stood or sat right here where I now sit, that they had walked into our bedroom, our living room, down our hallway to get back here.  The thief snatched the camera from atop the dining table behind me, the laptop from the leather satchel under the desk on my left.  An utterly unwanted visitor, one whose physical features and even gender I will never know.  I catch myself saying "he" or "him."  The thief is in fact an un-gendered wraith, a kind of "It" person, a wicked succubus.  It was shadow that violently forced its way into our world, picking and choosing from our possessions what it coveted.  A silk robe, a camera, a Macbook, cash, Forever stamps.
     We don't even know if the thief was alone or with an accomplice.  We don't know if the thief had watched me depart for the market, hiding stealthily behind a wall or tree or car until I had rolled away before storming the door with three hard and forceful shoves.  We were foolishly under the impression that there was nothing to worry about in this neighborhood.  We did not even question it, or wonder about the strength of the door locks, the vulnerability of the front windows, the back windows.  The fact that our door is concealed from the street by a set of stairs, making attempts at forced entry difficult to witness from the street sidewalks.  We chose a quiet, quaint single block street in centrally located Duboce triangle, a hub within striking range of downtown, the Haights, NOPA, the Mission, and the Castro.  The attraction of regular sunlight, pretty apartment buildings, pedestrian friendly tree lined streets, and a dog park. San Francisco style romance, in other words. Safety was the furthest thing from my mind.
     I wonder what would have happened if I had been home.  I wonder what would have happened if the robber had still been in the apartment when I returned.  The thought did not occur to me until ten minutes after I had realized we had been robbed, until I started hearing unusual noises.  He may still be here.  I did not check either the closet or the bathroom.  It never occurred to me.  That's when I grabbed the cast iron frying pan.  It is funny, in hindsight, seeing me lurking about my own apartment, heavy cast iron held aloft, not without difficulty, ready to ring a crook's bell, clean the succubus' clock.  Laughable.  At the moment, I was hella freaking out.  It was most likely my freaked out nerves that interpreted normal sounds as acutely suspicious.  Those first few moments after discovering the burglary injected I don't know how much adrenaline into my system, undoubtedly.  I was on nerves until after the police left, most certainly.  If the burglar had still be in the apartment, I don't know what I would have done.
     My body would have gone instantly into crisis mode, and for fear of the unknown element of whether a gun or even a knife was present, would have tried escape, then dialed nine one one as soon as humanly possible.  Several of Julie's friends have actually been in their apartment, encountering crooks face to face.  One friend was in Madrid when a thief stole his way in.  Thinking quickly, she scared him off by speaking in a gruff, husky male voice and demanding he leave immediately.  It worked.  Another entered and caught a glimpse of the thief fleeing through the back door.  A third friend engaged in a conversation with the crook, for I have no idea how long.  What does one discuss with the crook out to take your possessions?  Is there a negotiation?  Persuasive language in an attempt to dissuade criminal activity?  It's unimaginable to me.  I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that situation, and hope to never have to.
     I have been thinking about the robbery of our Walter Street apartment all week.  Although I've been told by the cops that this street never experiences much criminal activity, it has permanently altered the way I see and understand the neighborhood.  Duboce triangle is indeed a lovely and romantic part of town, centrally located and in its essence iconic of San Francisco.  It is also part of a big American city, complete with a very real and often violent criminal underbelly.   It was a mistake to be so naive, and with my track record I should have known better and peppered my wonder with the prudence of past misfortune.  That does not in any way nullify the heinousness of the crime or the culpability of the wicked succubus who committed it.  The law is the law, and protects private property in this country.  It is a sad fact that certain people in this world covet the possessions of others, and will break through front doors in broad daylight to steal them away.  And it is discouraging to think that covetousness is as old as history itself.  Cameras, laptops, silk robes, Jeffersons, Forever stamps.  We all have our stories, every one of us.  We've all been victimized, violated, taken from.  It doesn't happen only over there, in that part of the city, to that person, as the cops claim.  It can happen under my feet, where we stand, where we sit, writing blogs.  Right.  Here.

    

Friday, October 7, 2011

Rye bread



     I made Scandinavian soda bread yesterday, and here are a few jpgs based on the round.  This type of bread features a few curious ingredients.  Guinness stout, for one.  There is also dark corn syrup, which you can see being heated with some grams of unsalted butter in the jpg above.  Rye flour I like to bake bread with and cannot give you a why explanation.  The reason may have to do with an associatan with lembas, the magical seeming food of Middle Earth, and that in turn evokes in my mind a dot link to manna, heaven's food during the Moses era.  Desert grain.  It does not seem like a particularly cherished bread in the Americas, because of it's strong rye flavor, I suspect.  Though my minds tells me that those who do indeed love to hold a pint of the black in one hand and a hot and steaming German bratwurst in the other, would utterly adore this bread.  My mind suggests it to me in certain terms being the least of one's worries.
   
    




     Now other substances exist in this bread.  Unbleached bread flour, unsalted butter, salt, water, yeast.  The amount of time taken in order to make this bread has absolutely no connection to its ingredients.  I did have to set my stopwatch more than a couple of times.  I did have to make a proof box out of my oven.  The climate cools in October, and summer has ended, a person tells me.  What better time to make Scandinavian soda bread.  For the matter of the bread, the crust, as it is described, is very soft.  Imagine a wet sponge, then imagine a soft wet sponge, additionally.  This morning, I cut a thick slice off of the bottom round and toasted it.  Light setting.  The surface still burned.  Butter balled up when I tried to spread a pat over the toast.  It does not toast well.  Then I tried Nutella, spreading a thin layer of this richness over the second slice.  I had sliced the slice in half.  That proved much smoother going.  The rye married well with the Nutella. 



     I dropped Babette's Feast into the Netflix queue this morning, next after Meek's Cutoff. This statement, I have a feeling, aptly explains my, to me, mysterious act of adding this jpg below, an image of boiled and salted overripe string beans, into a blog covering, among other things, Scandinavian soda bread.




Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Buzzed


 
     A rather large bumblebee buzzed its way into the apartment today, along with a small band of other normal flies.  The buzz of its wings fills the room and my ears.  It has not landed.  The flies clear a flight path for the more dominant bee.  It must feel so lost and unable to find its way back into the sunny openness of today's clear blue sky.  I think it thinks there is no escape.  The structure of the apartment must be perplexing the bumblebee.    



     Wait, I heard a pause in the buzz.  The bee has landed.  O wait, I hear the buzzing again.  The bee has taken flight.  I like bee.  It is refreshing to have a daytime funemployment insect visitor.  It landed again!  It buzzes again.  This incessant buzzing is salting my game!  The bumblebee funemployment visitor has worn out my ears and its welcome.  Time to escort bee out the door.  Goodbye, buzzing bumblebee.



German Bratwurst do's and don'ts


     On my way home from Europe earlier this month, I had a one hour layover at Frankfurt airport.  I was hungry when I walked off the plane, so I immediately went searching for food.  Right outside the gate, I looked up and to my great joy saw a German sausage stand.  I thought that would be perfect to have a sausage and a beer in Germany, since I was technically in Germany, so I bought this one pictured above.  I know it generally looks strange and comical to Americans to see a dog served up in this way, with a bun that seems much too small for the size of the dog.  We are used to our buns being the same size as the weiner.  The Swedes serve their "korvs" as the Germans do, but with a longer, thinner sausage, and an even more meager bun.  It really looks cartoonish.  But both forms suited me just fine coming off of a long flight.  So after buying the above sausage, a went to the ketchup dispenser and pressed down its pump, thinking that the ketchup stream would be slow and easy.  
     To my utter dismay, the ketchup shot out like water from a garden hose set on jet, and splattered all over my hand as well as on the dog.  Unacceptable.  Totally unacceptable, I thought.  Why in the world would you need that kind of pressure for dispensing ketchup?  I turned on my heels and walked to the nearest seat, shaking my head and really questioning the legendary German rationality praised by philosophers of old.  I sat down and commenced eating my bludgeoned dog.  After a few bites (in which I took in all dog and no bread, mind you), I looked over to my left and noticed a woman sitting and eating the same kind of sausage.  She looked calm, reserved, and respectably dressed.  I believe she was German.  I watched her eat her dog.  In one hand, wrapped in a napkin, she held just the sausage, and in the other hand she held just the bread.  On a plate before her I saw a serving of ketchup and a serving of mustard.  She first dipped the end of her sausage into the ketchup followed by the mustard, bit into it, then lifted the bread up and bit into that.  Dual hand usage.  All very neat and clean.  All utterly rational.


Monday, September 26, 2011

The fellow who bogarted my tax shelter



     I shot this JPG this morning through the western window of Walter Street-the window facing the street.  You can see a pile of donations on the curbside along with a kick stood kid size bicycle.   A computer tower, a cast iron fajita pan, two plastic garbage bags, one filled with old clothes and the other filled with old kitchen items.  Also, a deflated soccer ball that I am certain can no longer hold air.   The old clothes were once worn by myself, and the used kitchen items were once used by both myself and Julie.  The bicycle, on the other hand, is owned by the a stranger who, it turns out, came along through Walter Street to bogart all of the donated items that he thought was of value for himself.  Through no timing of my own, I was able to see him do this and to take JPGs of the said bogarting.







     Who is this man?  Why is he a stranger?  What will he do with all the stuff he's bogarting on Walter Street?  I watch him through our western facing window.  I stand in the shadow of our black out drapes, watching him quietly, thoughtlessly.  I watch events unfold.  What I know is that I do not know this man.  What I know is that he was born of mother.  What is know is not what I am thinking about, however, as I watch him return to grab my bag of donations.  I was thinking about all of the pants and shirts that I had stuffed into that bag.  I had to choose each article from among the rest of my clothes hanging in the closet.  The oldest were the ones to go, of course, and I thought about how long I had owned each one, where and when I had first purchased them, the time I had spent in them, the life I had lived.  Memories, really.  Each article of owned clothing has shared a certain segment of my life, holds a specific amount of my own personal history in its thread and weave.  If I were to take each pant, shirt, jacket, sock, belt, t-shirt, boxer short, set it before me and think about each one, I would be able to lay out a map out my adult life in cloth form.  I wonder what kind of pattern that would create.  




    




     I don't think this fellow has any idea what individual history he bogarts with that white plastic bag he so nonchalantly picked off the curb and wheeled away with.  Or does he?  Does he know more than that?  He could be someone who understands himself as a salvager of forgotten memories, someone who trades lives in the same way that people trade cards, or hats, or ferns.  I don't know him.  But even with that, I like to think that he is taking the History of Roland in that white plastic garbage bag and reincarnating it into another perhaps higher, more exalted state of existence.  I like to think that the lives my frayed and holy pants and shirts will soon be revived on the backs of kings.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

three plain colors



     I was riding up Fulton Street on the sidewalk when I turned and saw these three apartment buildings on the left side of the street.  They caught my attention because, I think, of the colors with which they were painted.  I don't know why.  My eye took a little bit of its pleasure from looking at them, like Pantone color swatches, standing beside one another. Providing mutual support, in a way.  Keeping each other's structure intact, the colors true and defined.  I don't really know what colors they are.  The gray of the sky influences both the seen color and the way my camera records the light being reflected off of the objects.  Yet I dismounted, set my bike against a wall, walked a few steps to center the composition, and made the picture.  I like looking at the buildings together.  They are so plain and undistinguished, the middle one in particular, realizing that towns like Tijuana of maybe towns in Cuba may also have apartment buildings very similar to this one.  I don't really know, to be honest.  
     If you take a stroll or bike into certain neighborhoods here - the Richmond district, the Sunset district, for example, or near the sea - you might see that buildings like these three, with facades lacking in flourish or ornamentation, are quite common, even more common than, say, Victorians like those found around Alamo square.  Or those found on our Walter Street, even.  They are so square and uninteresting there on Fulton Street.  I'm surprised by my interest, that I chose to dismount and compose and photograph them.  These three friends of different colors standing together, keeping each other company, leaning on each other, day after cloudy summer day.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Dough boy


     
     I bought this big blue bowl for two dollars on Page Street between Scott and Divisadero, specifically for dough mixing and rising.  I've used it several times now since discovering it, and it has been magnificent.  Here I have made a jpeg where the bowl cradles a ball of pizza dough.  Julie and I are visiting the Sueys and the new boy Hunter Harvey this afternoon.  Pizza seems right for the occasion.  I'm rising this dough, above, in order to make two rounds of about one foot in diameter.  It is not yet clear what they will be topped with.  Ideas are smoked mozzarella, pepperonis, mushroom, ground pork knots, and tomato sauce.  The possibility of introducing shrimp ceviche has surfaced as well, for we have here at least three lemons that have been previously zested for dressings.
     There they are.  I often and always wonder what to do with them.  I should stick googly eyes on them and punt them into Duboce dog park half a block from my front door.  If anyone knows what to do with a trio of zested lemons, it's a pampered urban maltipoo and his friends pug and sheba inu.
     I have taken the recipe for my dough from Alice's magnificent book The Art of Simple Food.  Alice is my niggie.  I think this book is magnificent and recommend it to the earth.  Come two pm, the dough exits the refrigerator and gets set on a table to warm to room temperature, two hours,  before shaping into flat discs one foot in diameter.  Here is a jpeg of an orchid bud in our sun room.  The bud is opening:



     Find below also three jpegs of our resident ferns.  We joined the local fern kick only recently.  Neighbors in the surrounding Victorians I suspect joined this kick long ago.  We are just now discovering the simple beauty of the local fern.  These three fern came from Cole Hardware store, in Cole Valley.  Aside from ferns, this store vends portable grills and screws of various shapes, sizes, and metals.  Do not forget to think of them after your next Ikea run.






Thursday, June 2, 2011

Sunnyside Street

    

      Is it the second, or third, day of my unemployment?  Sit quietly, try to remember.  It has been a mysterious week.  [Moving forward]  A puzzling week-not because I have a puzzle of objectivity set before me and am unable to solve it.  I am within the puzzle, suddenly.  So early this week, on the first of a month, in a morning on the sixth floor of a glass and steel pediment, before a crackerjack woman bejewelled in as seen pure precious metals, whose pauses are emptying, stretched out in time, enigmatic, with silence that is not eloquent, not morose.  I did not blink, and then at once see that I am in Caracas, or atop Mt. Apu, or in a Polanski film, or in a buried coffin.  My objective view did not change.  I blinked, observed the formalities set down neatly on a table, signed, signed, initialed, signed.  She rose and led me down a naked hall to the elevator, would not shake my hand I had a cold, and I was swallowed up and descending.  The world remained the same, continued with its day, and that Roland continued with it. I shall never discover what will become of him. Puzzle entered.  Puzzle has made his bed in my apartment today while I wasn't looking, while I turn pages on the sinking couch, my toes pawing the threads of our woven oval rug.  I am  five again, but i my little hands this church organ has been broken into much more than five thousand pieces.  It's pipes are played in pillow buns, the breath shallow, even, inaudible.





Wednesday, June 1, 2011

2 June 2011


     The view through windows of our apartment on Walter St. facing the cottage out back.  I like this view.



     Morning tea in my favorite mug that was made by my cousin Lester in Chicago.  
    

Friday, February 11, 2011

Oil

Here is very useful information for those who deep fry with cooking oil.  Wonder what to do with all that used oil and grease?  Recycle it, it's a radical act, dude! >>

http://sfwater.org/detail.cfm/MC_ID/17/MSC_ID/401/MTO_ID/NULL/C_ID/4894

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Adobo

     Simmering chicken adobo at the moment.  I'm trying a new recipe pulled from the nytimes website article about a restaurant in Brooklyn that makes it with coconut milk and hot peppers.  1 cup of coconut milk, to be exact, and a chili called bird's eye that I've never heard of before.  I'm interested.  The recipe as well asks that I use 12 whole garlic cloves.  Now I've seen an entire stinking rose used in a pork adobo with great success.  To use this amount in chicken adobo will indeed be an adventure.  Heat from chili is another novelty that I'm mildly skeptical about, yet willing to try.  Instead of 3 chilis, however, I opted to add 1 chili, and chose a serrano.  I'll have to do some investigating about this bird's eye chili.  Perhaps this type of pepper in found in Pacific island nations like the Philippines, for instance.  It's all going to be a big surprise.





     The chicken is cooked and appears to be a success.  I have taken the pieces out of the pot and am not cooking down the sauce in order to thicken it into a creamy gravy.  I think this may take about 20 minutes or thereabout.  Vinegar is the prevalent kitchen smell at this moment:

 

     My conclusion - chicken adobo made with hecka garlic and coconut milk is delicious.  You get the same vinegar based sauce made rich by the added fat from the coconut.  It indeed retains the taste and smell of the national dish of the Philippine Islands, and then some.  The only thing I would do is add more chili peppers.  One was not enough.  Three would be a good number.  I must discover what these bird's eye chili peppers are.  This was a very simple dish to make, all told.  I of course marinated the bird overnight, but I did not taste much of a difference from the long marinade.  2 hours would work just fine.  I like the pictures I took, with white balance.  Looks almost exactly like what the eye sees.  I like writing about cooking.  I think I'll do this more often, with the added benefit of pictures.  Feels right.  I'm stuffed, like chicken.