Wednesday, February 28, 2007

babble

What a piece of crap from the director of one of my favorites, Amores Perros! It is a movie about bad decisions and their consequences. The movie is slow, the characters are cold, their actions are predictable and 2 1/2 hours of my life were flushed down the drain. The stories intersected, but were related distantly. Not interesting.

Monday, February 26, 2007

chaat-a-rific

Stopped by Sehbali Cafe in downtown Palo Alto around 4:30pm to pick up an order of Bhel Poori for the kid's dinner. Fortunately for me, the dish was made a bit too spicy, so I ate most of it. Chaat "to go" isn't the greatest idea. It should be eaten ASAP otherwise it gets a bit soggy. Still, it was a nice warming meal.

While I waited for the dish to be assembled I watched the other patrons. My favorite was one table with two people and one laptop doing business cold calls.

Sehbali Cafe
235 University Ave.
Palo Alto, CA 94301

(650)-566-8860

Sunday, February 25, 2007

netted a friend into neto

Thought I'd run into a friend who shops at the Mountain View Farmer's Market, just had a feeling...

Refused to buy the kid baklava at the market. As we walked back to the car I offered to buy her a pastry. Looked up, there was my friend heading towards the market. Told him we were off to Neto, and invited him to join us.

I've been to Neto a number of times. I prefer their savory dishes to their pastries. I find their pastries to be a bit doughy, and lacking in salt (and I'm a low salt kind of blogger!) Being 10am, figured I'd give their pastries another try. The kid had an eclair, our friend had a chocolate babka, I had the pita with zahtar. The pita was doughy, but slathered with zahtar, it didn't matter. The kid ate half of the eclair, then ordered a pita with zahtar. Kid got us samples of the chocolate croissant, which was doughy and lacking salt.

Washed everything down with a Turkish Coffee.

Neto Caffe & Bakery
135 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
650.625.9888

i am not a number, i'm a free man


Our PC solar powered residence numbers from matterinc arrived yesterday. Too bad it's raining outside, we'll have to wait to install them and check out their solar powered glory.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

bad blogger, haven't posted for a while

I've been bad. I haven't posted for a while. What has happened since I last typed...

1. Five of us had lunch at Madison and 5th today. 1pm on a Saturday downtown Palo Alto was busy, Madison and 5th wasn't so. Mad and 5th is an Italian eatery with a decent menu, clashing interior and high prices ($11 for a glass of the house red. "It's from Napa!" is all the waiter could tell us about it).

Three of the five diners were vegetarian. The waiter insisted the soup of the day was vegetarian. He didn't sound convincing, so we asked him to double check. The hostess came by to inform us the soup had chicken stock.

I had the Gratin of Pear Carpaccio, a confused dish of thinly sliced pears with lettuce hiding cheese and nuts melted on the top of some of the pear slices. Once I discovered where the cheese and nuts were, I enjoyed the dish more.

For a main course I had the pumpkin ravioli in a brown butter sage sauce special of the day. It was quite tasty, but I would have enjoyed one or two raviolis with a side of veggies instead.

Dessert was a Nutella crepe with what looked like mango in it (!!??) with a fruit sauce on top and vanilla ice cream. The elements were good, combined was a bit strange. I should have ordered a different dish, the dough used for the ravioli and the crepe had similar tastes. The kid had her first chocolate fondue. It was a match made in heaven.

Overall the meal was good. I'd eaten here once before, and was luke warm on the place. I'll give them one more try before passing final judgement.

I'll try to bring my camera next time!

2. Read Tuva or Bust!
A few weeks back a KFJC jock played a Tuvan throat singing piece. I'd heard Tuvan pieces in the past, but this piece caused me to google for information on Tuva. I found mention of Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey, and picked it up from the library.

The book recalls the author, Ralph Leighton, and his friend Richard Feynman's attempt to travel to Tuva in the late 1970's, early 1980s based on their interest in the spelling of the capital Kyzyl. Tuva was part of the Soviet Empire. Soviet/US relations were not great at the time. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the work required to investigate each and every fact, potential contacts, and hoops to jump through for permission to travel to Tuva in the pre-Internet age.

Madison & Fifth
367 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA
(650) 323-3900

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

carpet matches the curtains

Subject says it all.

Sunday, February 4, 2007

The People's Pizza Dough

Was in Berkeley for the final weekend of a year long one weekend per month class.

Saturday I visitedThe Cheeseboard Collective Saturday morning for a yummy Sourdough Cheese Roll before class, and City Batard, a Chocolate Cake Loaf (pieces to go into the kid's lunchbox) and a lump of The People's Pizza Dough for home. Well, it is pizza dough and they are a collective...

Found the pizza dough to be really runny, no amount of flour on our hands would allow it to be worked with. Dumped it into our Kitchen Aid mixing bowl, added flour, and got a workable lump of dough. Made a pizza for the kid for dinner on Saturday and Sunday, as well as Monday for lunch.

Did Poulet for lunch. Had a veggy sandwich there. Paid no attention to the food, since I was told I would be coming back from lunch and teaching a class. I had nothing prepared, so I spent lunch studying and writing furiously.

Sunday stopped at Sweet Adeline for a delicious heated Cheddar and Scallion Scone and an Apple Turnover to bring home.

Lunch found a group of us at Taste of the Himalayas for a buffet lunch. The buffet is usually good, today I found the food bland and uninspired.

Taste of the Himalayas
1700 Shattuck Ave., Suite #A
Berkeley, CA 94709
510-849-4983

Sweet Adeline Bakeshop
3350 Adeline Street
Berkeley, CA 94703
510-985-7381

Poulet
1685 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA
510-845-5932

Cheeseboard Collective
1504 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA (they don't list a zip on their web page)
510-549-3183

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Ghost in the Banana Machine

Banana Ghost's Man Man video. Watch it.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Snoozybaby

Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhal), is newly paroled and trying to rebuild her life for herself and her daughter. She deals with an abusive parole officer, abusive father, brother and sister-in-law that are surrogate parents to her daughter, an old flame, and the ghost of addiction. The movie is well acted and at times uncomfortable. It is also slooowww and boring. They could have cut out the sex scenes and made it a network 'movie of the week.'

Valentine's Day Massacre


I'm a bad parent. I thought these would be so cute, so fun to make, I'm willing to send the kid down the Trans Fat highway in the name of entertainment. I was disillusioned that Pop 'N' Fresh wouldn't lead us astray. He doesn't really allow all that artificial stuff in food for kids.

Cookies were baked. The kid wasn't thrilled with the taste. Take that, Doughboy.