The US Military Was Recruiting on a Gay Website

But they've stopped, thank goodness. Who knows what could have happened! They might have mistakenly recruited someone to commit... National Service While Gay.

Last Week, Redux

Wednesday: My Better Half and i flew to Los Angeles, arriving around noon. She headed to the Galerie, while i finished a day's work by the hotel pool. Later i swung by the new gallery space myself for a sneak peek at the show, and MBH and i joined Eric and Rob (the gallery's tech guy and general fixer) for dinner at Sky Bar (meh).

Thursday: Another day of work and another visit to the gallery, this time for the inaugural opening of Galerie Mourlot Los Angeles! The gallery space is very nice (and very large, compared to the New York location), including some nicely landscaped outdoor space. Keith's work looked great as usual, especially the four-panel "Double Crossing Yourself" (about half-way down this page).

The customary post-opening dinner took place next door at Il Piccolino, an Italian restaurant run by a French-speaking Belgian that serves a fantastic steak frite -- as if the restaurant were made specifically for Eric.

Friday: After more pool-side work, MBH and i hooked up with friends Ivan and Sarah for dinner at Hugo's, which Ivan had billed (correctly) as "healthy food that tastes good". Then we headed back to their place to hang out with them and Twiggy the pug, and play some games on the Wii; MBH struck me several times with the Wii controller, but i didn't take it personally.

Saturday: MBH and i met Ivan at the poured-concrete studio where he's working (and becoming a partner), making counter tops and an ever-increasing assortment of other things. (Some cool concrete vases of Ivan's were on display at Keith's opening.) It's amazing to see what all can be done with that stuff, and great to see Ivan excited about what directions the studio might go.

For lunch we met up with Sarah at one of LA's crazy shopping malls and ate in the food court, which puts most American fast food to shame. A bowl of brown rice, chicken, and vegetable curry, with vegetables that are actually fresh -- mmmmmm.

Back at Ivan & Sarah's, Ivan beat me at Scrabble (barely), while MBH and Sarah went shopping. We watched the Red Sox start winning game 2 of the ALCS... Then Ivan & Sarah went to see Morrissey's "last" performance, while MBH & I returned to our hotel to ...watch the Red Sox lose game 2. Then to bed.

Sunday: We met Ivan and Sarah for brunch at Frank's Coffee Shop, which proves that even a greasy eggs and corned-beef hash breakfast can be made healthier on the west coast without compromising deliciousness. Then they dropped us off at the airport, where we met up with Keith and Beth and flew back home.

Where it finally feels like October, thank goodness.

Last Week

Sunday: flew into San Jose.

Monday: first day on the new job. Lots of introductions, admin stuff, getting set up on the tool chain. Lunch: Indian buffet! Lunch may be the only redeeming factor for an office physically located in Silicon Valley.

Monday night: went with a small group of colleagues and SO's to see "You Tubed" at the Climate Theater in San Francisco, wherein the troupe reenact various silly YouTube videos. Highlights: The Laughing Yogi and the finale, "I Wanna Love You Tender". Dinner: really good Thai.

Tuesday: second day of work. More paperwork. Getting into the rhythm of things. Lunch: Vietnamese (pho). Dinner: burritos in the Mission with friends Dave & Marlene. Mmmmm... California burritos...

Wednesday: day three. Finally ditch the part of the tool chain that's been giving me the most grief and is not strictly necessary. Lunch: more pho (different place).

Wednesday night: dinner with friend Phil at Kitsho in Cupertino. Sushi chef and owner Howard serves up better sushi than i've ever had before. Also: real grated wasabi, which i'd never tasted before. Wow. If you like sushi and you're ever in that area, sit at the counter and take whatever the chef gives you.

Then, the red-eye back home.

Thursday: stopped by the gallery for the Anthony Fisher opening. Still exhausted from the red-eye, so My Better Half had to attend Eric's customary post-show dinner alone.

Saturday: MBH & i saw "Love Sucks", a "punk-rock musical" co-written by friend Matt's brother Stephen. Kind of a cross between Hedwig and Grease. Lighthearted and fun. Visited briefly with Matt & Amy (down for the weekend from the Boston area) and some of Matt's/Stephen's family.

Sunday: MBH & i visited a couple Open House New York sites with friends Josh & Abby; i wish i had been paying better attention sooner, there were some very interesting things we could have seen, including the substation at our subway stop in Brooklyn.

We met up with Matt & Amy & Harry the welsh terrier for an early dinner, and then called it a night.

Competition!

Frito-Lay is now the largest buyer of pumpkin in the US. They better not be driving up the price of my kaddo!

Blissful Unemployment, Day 30: Last Day Off

Today is my last without a job, for now. This evening i'll be hopping a plane to California, and tomorrow is my first day with the new gig.

It's been great having an entire month off work, but i've learned that i'm just as lazy without a job as with one. I got basically nothing accomplished other than power-relaxing. C'est la vie!

Blissful Unemployment, Day 29: Again with the Kaddo

Saturday night we made dinner and Keith and Beth came over. Last week's kaddo was so good i decided to make it again, along with a new biryani recipe. My Better Half decided to break out the china, just for fun. And this time, i got pitchas!

The pumpkin, all covered in sugar:
The pumpkin, fresh from the oven:
A big bowl of vegetable biryani (much better than last week's):

A place of delicious food (my culinary skills are surpassing my photographic capabilities):
And, MBH made cupcakes for dessert!

Blissful Unemployment, Day 21: Pumpkinarrific!

If you live in the vicinity of Cambridge or San Francisco (or maybe Baltimore?) and you don't know the Helmand restaurant, then you should familiarize yourself with it immediately. Helmand makes Afghan food that is unbelievably good. It's one of the things i miss most from my time in the Boston area; there's good Afghan food to be had in New York, but so far i haven't found anything like Helmand.

Whenever i visit Helmand, i make sure to have at least a little bit of kaddo ("kadoo"), a sweet pumpkin dish served with a yogurt sauce and optionally a meat sauce. It is a strong candidate for Most Delicious Thing There Is To Eat. (After all, it is orange in color, and we all know the simple rule that Orange Food Tastes Good.)

My Better Half got it into her head that i should try to make kaddo at home, which proposal immediately was seconded by myself. It didn't take much searching to find this recipe, which claims to have originated at Helmand itself. I stopped at Whole Foods to get some sugar pie pumpkins, filled a couple holes in our spice collection, and got to work.

The hardest part was peeling the pumpkin pieces, but it's the kind of task i'll get a lot better at with practice. (I used a vegetable peeler; i'm not deft enough with a knife to do that kind of work without losing too much delicious pumpkin.) Covering the pumpkin with oil and then a small mountain of sugar feels somewhat silly the first time (as the linked recipe implies), but if you've ever eaten kaddo you know it'll be worth it.

We didn't have any dried mint (even after the Whole Foods trip), so i used dried basil in the yogurt sauce, figuring that Fage is good enough to accommodate substitutions. Olive oil worked fine instead of the corn oil the linked recipe calls for, though i wouldn't necessarily use one that smells/tastes overpoweringly of olives. MBH strongly prefers ground turkey to ground beef, so i used that in the meat sauce.

(I paired the kaddo with a biryani recipe that wasn't very good, so i'm not even going to link it here.)

Everything came together incredibly well, and on the dinner table the pumpkin, yogurt, and meat sauce looked, smelled, and tasted like heaven. Not quite as good as Helmand's, but easily the most delectable thing i myself have cooked so far. I was going to take a picture to see if i could capture the visible waves of pure deliciousness for this blog, but the camera's battery was dead, and i sure wasn't going to wait.

Blissful Unemployment, Day 17: Picklicious

Hey, do you like pickled beets? What? "No"? What do you mean, "no"? Go climb a tree, you communist. Mr. D and i will eat 'em.

Anyway, did you know you can make delicious pickled beets in just a few hours? Me neither, until recently. While looking up zucchini bread in the Bittman, my eye happened on something called "Quick Pickled Beets", which of course i filed away for immediate follow-up. On the 17th, it was time to boil some beets. They aren't quite the same as actual canned/jarred picked beets, but they are indeed tasty.

Even if you don't like beets, you should boil some up at least once. Once they've boiled for a while, the water is a beautiful, natural red, absolutely spectacular. And of course you can make dye from it, if you're so inclined. Not me, i'm just in it for the food.

Blissful Unemployment, Day 16: The Nosebleeds, Revisited

On the 16th, My Better Half and i returned to the land of enormous street numbers to visit friends Ann and Frank, who live near Columbia. (Ann is studying urban planning at Columbia, and Frank is a chemist there.) We walked around their neighborhood for a bit, and saw that Columbia has a very nice campus -- a respite from the metropolis, but not apart from it.

Dinner was at a friendly neighborhood place that Ann and Frank like: Pisticci. Figs stuffed with goat cheese and roasted -- uff-da, that's good eating.

Blissful Unemployment, Day 13: The Nosebleeds

Our friends Brian and Lindsay lived in our Brooklyn neighborhood for a while, but then moved back to Washington Heights, where they had lived previously. On the 13th, My Better Half and i finally hopped into Keith and Beth's car to head up there, and the six of us had dinner in B&L's new apartment up near four hundred eleventy-ninth street. Their new place is nice and roomy, and they're well on their way to having it fully furnished. A good night was had by all!

Blissful Unemployment, Day 12: Home Cookin'

On the twelfth day of Christmas unemployment, a simple-looking recipe caught my eye on a local blog, so i whipped up some pasta with red lentils and spinach when My Better Half got home from work. Our sketchy neighborhood grocery store didn't have any red lentils, so i used yellow split peas, figuring that a little color was more interesting that any specific beany flavor. We both liked it a lot, though MBH pointed out it could use more spinach. (Also, i made it with half butter and half olive oil, which was just fine, rather than an entire stick of butter.)

Then, i whipped up some zucchini bread, using the recipe from How to Cook Everything. Delicious! MBH pointed out it could use more zucchini, so we'll use at least half again as much next time. Thanks again, Mr. Bittman! (And Dorilona and Michael, who gave us that book.)

Blissful Unemployment, Day 11: Yay Airports! Part the Second

Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've had a sort-of-job-interview-slash-business-meeting at an airport. This fellow Dmitry, who is the Vice President of Something at the Silicon Valley outfit, wasn't there on the 7th and wanted to meet me face-to-face. He had a layover at John F Kennedy International Airport, so we met there and talked over lunch in the food court. Dmitry's a nice guy.

I'm a little concerned, though, that willingly visiting JFK three times in the span of a week may be a sign of mental instability.