If a tree falls in the forest...

Sorry for the silence if anyone has been checking in (...I sort of doubt that anyone has) things have been busy, and I've been distracted by a secret personal finance blog of mine that has managed to get almost 3000 hits already from when I started it in the end of July (which I feel is pretty decent) and quite honestly, I haven't been cooking. 

Oh the shame!

I know. 

Its not like I haven't been cooking at all, just haven't been cooking new and interesting things. 

Despite my initial excitement about sewing, my pattern sits unopened in my stack of mail. Still.

I've started back at school, which is fantastic, but mostly to blame for this lack of cooking. I'm taking a policy class, Environmental Decision Analysis. Its challenging. More so than I initially expected. 

Adam and I will be moving one of these days...which will cause a little jump in my rent, which may, in turn, inspire me to cook once again in an effort to bring more lunches and eat out less. 

Dresses!

Lately, I have been crazy about dresses. Crazy in love with their ease and their comfort. Crazy determined to wear the ones that have been gathering dust in my closet. Crazy dreaming of laying around in the summer sun with bare feet and a dress on.


You can imagine my delight when stumbling upon this little gem of a website: http://www.dressaday.com/

A dress a day!

I am now madly searching vintage pattern sites for a mc calls 8858 and/or a simplicity 3875

Have I ever sewn an article of clothing in my life?

No!

Does it matter?

No!

To sewing dresses!

(or attempting to...)

A Damn Fine Cup of Coffee

Adam and I took ourselves and a very excited Lucy Lebowski to Little Si on Sunday. The clouds seemed to clear once we were about 20 miles out of the city, and the cool, lush, fern covered forest was a welcome break from the concrete jungle we call home.

While not officially an off-leash trail, Lucy was on her best behavior and was free to bound ahead of us, skidding through mud puddles and chasing an endless array of decaying sticks. Impressively, not leaving her muddy paw prints on any unsuspecting new friends she met along the way.

On our way to the trail head, we stopped by Tweeds Cafe in historic downtown North Bend for breakfast. Affectionately known by Twin Peaks fans as "The R & R" since neither Adam or I have seen the show. This means nothing to us. I selected Tweeds because: 1. I don't know of anywhere else to eat in North Bend and 2. Adam has a tendency to favor truck stop breakfast over, say, vegan breakfast like me.

The coffee, actually was pretty damn fine. Despite our tendency towards coffee snobbery. We skipped cherry pie, as it didn't seem an appropriate choice for breakfast before hiking. The issue we immediately encountered was with the menu: crowded, confusing and lacking descriptions. Adam appropriately compared it to a menu you'd see traveling; written in English, but doubtful that the wait staff, the kitchen and the customer have the same idea of what will actually appear on the plate. Our 17 year old, small town waitress was impressively patient with our questions.

A: What is the country mix?
W: Oh, thats the best one! It has bacon, sausage, ham, potatoes, peppers, onions, olives....
A: What about this one?
W: Well, the other one has all the meat in it, but that one is good too. It has...
E: Babe, it has all the meat in it.

I decided on a spinach, mushroom and feta scramble (no, not like the mix, I'd like the omelet, but scrambled, please). I think it was made with six eggs, and I think I ate 1/4 of it before it was impossible to take another bite. Adam supposedly asked for a half order of biscuits and gravy (not vegan, apparently, vegan gravy only exists in the city) but you would have never guessed by looking at his plate. We were defeated by quantity. When I paid the bill, the waitress seemed concerned.

W: Was everything, alright?
E: Yeah. Great. Its just...I think there were six eggs in that.

Drug Bus(t)

This is a repost from an old blog of mine...just for nostalgias sake

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Drug Bus(t). I should probably wait until I´m not tired, or cold and can give this blog some justice....but I won´t because it deserves its own space and cannot be muddled with other, less significant entries. Two days ago - Tuesday - we miraculously escaped Iquique on a bus bound for Santiago after being told by about six bus companies that all buses were full until Sunday. We had planned to stop at other charming locations along the way, but they were all sold out as well, because Monday is Chile´s Independence day and therefore a popular time to travel. The ride from Iquique is 28 hours. The bus was not comfortable, nor was it terribly uncomfortable - but now, almost 26 hours after my arrival in Santiago I still feel like crap, so I suggest that you: 1. Not take a 28 hour bus ride OR 2. Take a Salon Cama bus - if given the option. Which I was not. ANYWAY.... 26 hours into the ride, our bus is pulled over at one of the many toll booths along the way. On comes the police, a detective (his jacket said so!) and a lovely dog. The dog runs up and down the bus...but keeps coming back to the general area we are sitting in. The dogs trainer has him check out the row in front of us, and ultimately pulls off two people: a woman and her baby, and the only other foreign traveler on the bus - both sitting next to each other, one row ahead of us, across the isle. After awhile, the foreigner comes back on...people start asking him if she has drugs and he confirms. Really? Yes, the lady with the baby has drugs. Not just a little bit....but EIGHT KILOS OF COCAINE. So we´re there....on the side of the road, two hours out of Santiago while the police do their checks and take photos and video to document the situation, and finally, we get on the bus. The bus attendant gets on and gives this speech real quickly, of which I catch ¨act like nothing happened when we get to Santiago¨ and I´m feeling a little confused, just then, the woman and the detective get on the bus and he handcuffs her to the seat! Since people were waiting for her to arrive in Santiago the police thought it would be a great idea for her to continue her journey.... Despite the terrible things racing through my mind as to what was about to happen to me when I arrived in Santiago, here I am, safe and sound. Its a shame I can´t follow up as to what happened next, but thats as far as my story about the bus ride with 8 kilos of coke goes.....

(Fish)Food for Thought...

Properly managed, the ocean is an incredible source of protein. I'll add more to this at a later date, but I'd like to point out that we are doing a terrible job:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7413948.stm

and...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6108414.stm

Burma Superstar

I love Seattle, but San Francisco is turning my blue eyes green. This envy does not result from the lack of permeable surfaces on city streets, but a recent and delicious love affair with Burmese food.

San Francisco is home to Burma Superstar - an awesome restaurant in the inner Richmond neighborhood. I just came home from a four-day weekend in San Fran, where we ate at Burma Superstar twice! The wait can be long, but its well worth it and they will call as your name approaches the top of the list, cutting the annoyance factor down to tolerable.

To start: tea leaf salad, samusa soup and coconut rice. The tea leaf salad is refreshing and complex. I wouldn't have expected a soup with lentils, cabbage, onion and crumbled samusas and falafels to be incredibly delicious, but delicious it was! The sweet taste of coconut rice still lingering on my tongue...I'm ready for Burma Superstar to invade Seattle.

Throwin' Clay

I have an amazing grandmother. The sort of grandmother whose house always smells delicious, who uses words like "davenport", who was eating tofu before you could buy it in just any grocery store and who is delightfully liberal and politically savvy. She will casually reference Deborah Madison as "little Debbie" since she just so happened to have known the Madison family while living in Davis, CA around the time my mother was born, before they moved to Berkeley.

While chatting with my grandmother last Sunday about her recent trip to Fiji for her 87th birthday, presidential candidates and the beginning pottery class Adam and I had just finished, she appropriately compared the satisfaction of pottery to making bread. I wish I could remember her words exactly, because she spoke so eloquently of what becomes of your perfectly wedged clay equal to what becomes of a well kneaded ball of dough left to rise.

Reflecting on my undergraduate education, International Environmental Studies (which has left me with a basic knowledge of of many global, environmental and social issues, and a deep, scientific understanding of almost none of them) I often wish I would have pursued an art degree instead. I am almost always thinking that I should have studied photography. Its easy to get lost in a daydream of being paid to travel and take photos...I often think I am bursting at the seams with creative energy. I lieu of yet another bachelors degree I may not use, I should just try to plan time for more creative activities. Painting, taking pictures, making prints and throwing clay.

Adam and I took a beginning wheel through Seattle Parks & Rec. We were hesitant at first, $180 seemed steep for an art class. After the first class class at the Alki Bathhouse; I think we both felt it was well worth it. As a passerby, I'd always been curious about the space at the Alki bathhouse. Its a tiny studio near the Alki Bakery. The half of the studio devoted to pottery is reminiscent of a summer camp craft house; shelves overflowing with donated glazes, a kiln, adult work drying on shelves with creations from the kids hand building class, and lovely pottery wheels. Our instructor, Janna, was patient and talented. She allowed us freedom to throw what we fancied, while demonstrating proper
techniques, often more than once for the student who missed it the first time around.

The session ran about ten weeks. We headed to Alki for class on Wednesday nights after work. Most Saturday's we spent in the studio too, working our way through fifty pounds of clay, each. Fifty pounds made me about thirty pieces of pottery including the slightly off center pieces from the beginning. Its amazing how glaze and a firing really showcases your mistakes.