Happy Holidays

There are so many things that I dislike about the holiday season:

• obligatory gifting
• holiday decor
  
• stressed-out people yelling at each other (or me)
  
• long lines at the grocery store

But of course I enjoy the days off, and I have to admit that I look forward to the annual Family Quality Time on Christmas Eve. Here's this year's commemorative photo. Hope everyone got to spend some Quality Time with their friends & family too.

Heartwrenchingly Beautiful

Yup, that's right. I used the phrase "heartwrenchingly beautiful" as the title of this post. Because even though I hate to admit it (I have a reputation to maintain here), when I look at the amazing scenery in southern Utah, it makes my heart actually hurt.

It's not my fault! It would happen to anyone, I swear!

First of all, the stuff that Nature has produced in southern Utah is mind-blowingly beautiful.

There are gigantic chunks of tectonic plates jutting thousands of feet up into the sky. I'm talking like 75 mile long, jagged pieces of earth. It looks like those plates that go along a stegosaurus's spine.

I got this picture from rangenet.com because it shows the San Rafael Swell nicely.

There are swirling canyons of red sandstone. Rocks that glow in red and orange and purple. Rocks, people. Crazy colored rocks.

I took this last year at "the wave" in southern Utah.

There are arches and fins and needles and all kinds of geologic oddities.

This year in Arches.

And giant expanses of desolate desert, where you might not encounter another person for days.

Arches National Park.

And then there are cute little pockets of inhabitable land, where agriculture is possible, and people have set up farms and ranches. And again, your heart just hurts to see the perseverance of the farmers against the backdrop of the Dr. Seuss-like landscape.

This picture isn't mine either. It's from thundafunda.com.

So basically, I am in love. With the ridiculous rocks and the river-carved canyons and the way that millions of years of the earth's geologic activity is so shamelessly laid out on display.

For this year's third annual pilgrimage to this holy land, I chose to go canyoneering around Moab. I signed up for some guided trips, and spend 3 days hiking, scrambling, rappelling, and otherwise navigating rocky canyons. Some highlights were:

A counterbalanced rappel off of a large arch. This means that the rope was not tied to anything at the top - having one person rappel off of either side of the arch is more than enough to keep the rope in place.

Counter-balanced rappel off of a giant arch. I'm on the left :)

Trying to avoid giant potholes full of water in Granary Canyon.

The guide fell in!

Scrambling through "Fat Man's Misery" in the Fiery Furnace, a rocky section of Arches National Park.

This was really a tight spot. And tough to shimmy through.
AND there is nothing below you to hold you up.

It was actually a bit hard to leave this time. I wanted to stay and play more. I started to become curious as to whether I could maybe even move out there someday. Would I miss city life too much, or would I maybe find that the stores and the events and the restaurants don't mean as much to me as I thought? Would I miss the hustle or forget all about it? Bored or fulfilled? Not sure. But as I get older, I can imagine staying out there more and more. Definitely something to keep in mind when things get hectic around here, and financial obligations feel stifling, that there's always Utah.

Arches NP with the La Sal Mountains in the background.

Just another day in Paradise

I know, I just quoted a lame Phil Collins song, and I'm sorry if it's now stuck in your head or you're reminiscing about watching him perform it at the Grammys many years ago like my brother and I did when we were kids and didn't yet realize that the Grammys suck.

ANYWAY.

Since this whole "not working" thing is soooo rough, I decided that a trip to Maui was in order. So the BF and I went for a long weekend of snorkeling, poolside reading, and yummy dinner eating. I know, life is hard, right? Maybe I can justify the ridiculously indulgent month of September by declaring it my "Birthday Month"? Instead of having a birthday party and concentrating all the birthday celebrations into one day, I chose to spread them out over the course of the month. There, that sounds reasonable, right?

Point being, I spent some of the latter part of the month lounging around on Maui, and I will now proceed to rub it in your face.

Jealous?

We stayed at the Makena Resort, which is located on one of my favorite beaches on Maui. This beach has a relaxed, uncrowded vibe and offers great snorkeling and turtle-spotting. So we did some of that.

Also went on a boat trip to Molokini, the tiny island off the coast which is actually the rim of a submerged volcano. It's a marine sanctuary, so lots of great fish-watching. Our captain had set up some fishing poles on the back of the boat, with lures dragging in the water, and one of them caught a Mahi-Mahi, which we got to reel in! Unfortunately no photo, since we were busy reeling in the fish.

And of course, we ate well.

Delicious fish at Capische.

So really, it was pretty darn nice. Not a bad way to finish up the Birthday Month of Being Ridiculously Indulgent. Now I think I need to get back to basics by maybe spending October camping and/or doing some hard labor. I'll keep you posted.

Gratuitous photo of a Banyan tree, because I was pleased with how this pic turned out.

Shame on me... the eating continues

Seriously this month's eating escapades have gotten a bit out of hand. The following things all happened in September, making it officially a month of gluttony: my birthday, a Labor Day weekend trip, a Napa visit, the monthly dinner club outing, a trip to Gary Danko to utilize a gift certificate and now a dinner at Saison, which was made long in advance, and happens to fall in September as well. Also, I am going to Hawaii in a few days, where I will end up eating out for most of my meals, since that's what happens when you travel and stay in a hotel.

I should probably have been fasting all month or doing a juice diet or something, in preparation for the upcoming donning-of-the-swimsuit-in-public, but instead I ate twice my body weight in butter-poached restaurant food. Oops.

Anyway, if I'm gonna sacrifice my waistline to boldly try all these restaurants, then I thought the least I could do is share the information with the world, so that others can benefit from my experiences. I know, so generous.

So, I kicked off this weekend with an excursion to the far northern edges of my neighborhood. And by that, I mean that I walked to Mission Beach Cafe for brunch. I had been there once before, for dinner, and was generally pretty pleased with the food and the overall experience, but seeing as it is so far (10 blocks!) and there are so many good places to eat around here, I had not since made my way back.

After a late start, and a long trek (again, 10 blocks!), I arrived closer to lunchtime, so I ended up getting the burger. I am writing about it, even though I don't have pictures, because I want to express that this is a very delicious burger. Possibly one of the best I have had in a while. It oozed meat juice all over my plate (+1). It had carmelized onions (+1). It had a thick slice of super-ripe heirloom tomato (+1). The bun was actually a roll, made of pretty decent bread (+1). It came with a giant side of crispy, salty, herb-y fries (+1). The whole thing was 12 bucks, with no stupid surcharges for the toppings - awesome! Sadly, I devoured the thing without thinking taking a picture, so you'll just have to go see for yourself. But the point being that it was really good, and you should definitely go there and get a burger. Oh, and the other stuff looked pretty good too.

Secondly, I went to a place called Saison last night. It's a "pop-up" restaurant, which means that it only happens once a week, and it's not an official restaurant. Saison serves dinner in the back of Stable Cafe every Sunday night, and you make a reservation through their website. Unlike Mission Street food, this pop-up dinner is really quite fancy, with several courses and an optional wine pairing. I got the wine pairing. Duh.

This time I took pictures, so you can see the beautiful presentation. The dining room is also adjacent to the open kitchen, so you can see the chefs working, and even interact with them before and after dinner. The whole thing was a bit long, with sort of long waiting periods in between courses, but the mellow atmosphere and friendly service made it seem like not a big deal.



The menu started off with an amuse bouche with two different watermelon preparations. Yummy, fresh little bites. The yellow one (above) had Indian spices, and the red one had a tiny bit of kalamata olive. Then we had a slow-cooked egg with caviar and egg custard, served inside an egg shell. It was super-soft and creamy, with salt from the caviar. Then a salad of thin sliced veggies on top of raw snapper and lemon creme fraiche.



Then a hunk of seared tuna in seaweed broth topped with dashi. This was smoky on the outside from being grilled, and sweet on the inside where it was still raw. The broth was salty and delicious, and hard for me to describe, since I am still fairly new to eating seafood.



Last, we had three types of pork: some grilled loin, some braised leg, and a slice of head cheese, which apparently includes all parts of the head, including brains and stuff. I have to admit, I wasn't excited about the terrine of head parts, but it actually wasn't bad. The flavor was pretty good, and it was only the texture of the various bits that was a little weird. At the end, we got a panna cotta with slightly syrupy peaches on top. The peaches were fantastic, although the panna cotta was nothing special. I almost would have preferred just a bowl of the peaches, but hey it was still pretty good, and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining.

The whole experience was fun, especially since you get to go to this place that isn't well known, and you enter into a back room through the courtyard. So it feels kind of special and intimate. I would definitely recommend the wine pairings too, since I felt like they really complimented the food. None of the wines were really my favorite types of wine, but they tasted amazing when I drank them with the food. I think that is the mark of a job well done by the wine director.

So, now I have three days to detox from my weekend of gluttony before I head off to Maui for coconut pancakes, fish tacos and loco moco. I'll try to take lots of photos and give a full report when I return.

Food adventures: eating ridiculously well

I have to say, I've been eating incredibly well lately. I've been to a new "nice" restaurant every week or two, which is sort of ridiculous, but hey, you only live once, right? In case you're curious, here's a quick summary of some of the recent experiences.


Gary Danko:
Got the 4 course menu and everything was quite good, but I kinda feel like any decent restaurant can make fresh lobster, corn, tomatoes and potatoes taste pretty good. Nothing on the menu here really "wowed" me. Especially for the price. And don't even get me started on the wine prices. Cheapest bottles are near $100! I can get an awesome dinner at Delfina for half the price, or Beretta for even less.

Sorry for the lame iPhone photo - once again forgot my camera.

Range:
Went here for my bday since it's semi-fancy and in walking distance from my house. The food is always good here, but I just don't have any idea why this place gets a Michelin star every year. It's good, but not really memorable, and I'm not sure it's as good as some of the other Michelin star recipients. I had better food at Bar Jules which doesn't even have a star.

Looks swanky, though, huh?

The Bazaar by Jose Andres (in LA):
This was a really fun dinner. The food was whimsical and delicious. Everything was presented in a playful manner, and often deconstructed using techniques from "molecular gastronomy". I am a loser and forgot to take my camera, but here is a picture and description of the "liquid olives" that we had.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2009/04/09/liquid-olives-like-water-balloons-but-with-olive-juice/


Sebo:
This is regarded as one of the best sushi joints in SF, and the fish was of incredibly high quality, but I couldn't help but want some more interesting preparations. We had about 10 different plates of sushi, and almost all of them were nigiri style, with just a piece of fish on rice. Everything was good, but I think I am more partial to the fun and interesting preparations that some other places make. For example, I recently had a roll that included tuna, mango and macadamia nuts, and another that was lightly charred and had spice from a jalapeno slice, all of which really enhanced the fish, in my opinion.

Beautiful fish...

Ad Hoc (in Napa):
Just really simple, delicious food, served family style. We had a fresh garden salad with lots of veggies from the French Laundry garden. Then steak and carrots, then cheese and finally a peach crumble. Yum!

Summer on a plate! I could eat this all day. Bonus points for the fried squash blossoms.

As you can see, the adventures in Julieland have been fairly food-oriented lately. I sadly haven't done much in the outdoors lately. I'll try to get back on the bike soon, and maybe even get up to the mountains at some point. That is, if I can squeeze it in between restaurant reservations.

Land of Sunshine (and cleavage)

Last weekend, I visited my Little Bro in Santa Barbara. He got a job at a company that makes and installs wind turbines, so he and his girlfriend moved down there. I kinda miss having him nearby, but I get his decision to go with the good job and the perpetual sunshine.

Rough day, huh?

We mostly hung out at the beach and wandered around the downtown, trying to find decent food. What's up with Santa Barbara have no good restaurants? You would think that a fancy town like that could pull together a decent cafe or something. Honestly, the best thing going on there is the Pinkberry (which I love, btw. And they are offering coconut flavor froyo this summer, so OMG get your ass over there!).

Also, what is up with the aggressive displays of cleavage? I guess that is a SoCal thing. I had to avert my eyes so often, I ended up just looking down at the sidewalk to play it safe. And behold! As I was looking down, I saw fire hydrants made of gold:

Yo, Santa Barbara is so fancy, even the fire hydrants are made of gold.

Other highlights of the trip: when a pigeon crapped on my shoulder while I was eating breakfast, and when Lola got completely wiped out by a wave and subsequently refused to go back in the water. Good times.

Thanks to Little Brother for hosting me!

Confessions from Europe

I've been back in the US for a few weeks now, but I never got around to posting any sort of recap of my trip to Europe. So I thought I'd share a few confessions/revelations/photos to summarize the time I spent there:

1. What is it about Berlin that turns me into an all-night-party fiend? I hung out in smoky bars and danced to cheesy euro-pop music till the sun came up. Ah Berlin, I' hab Di' Lieb.
   




2. In Paris, a city where food is celebrated and revered, I broke down and went to McDonalds. Is it just me or is the burger at French Mickey D's waaaay better than in the US? Especially when paired with a nice cold orange Fanta. Mmmm. Don't worry, I also ate some good food:
   





3. I am convinced that the French stay skinny by smoking instead of eating. Just sayin'.
   
4. I missed the fresh air of the City by the Bay.
   
5. I did NOT miss seeing people walking around with those stupid bluetooth headsets stuck to the side of their head.
6. I thought NY might be the one city that's cooler than SF, but now I'm not so sure. Although they are better at appreciating pickles:
   





7. It's easier to gain the croissant weight than it is to burn it back off :( I am now eating salad and quinoa and repenting my daily pastry indulgences.
   

Ok, maybe this doesn't quite do justice to my 5 weeks in Europe, but it's pretty close. Now on to the next challenge: time to find a job!

I gotta have more accordion!

Why does no one play the accordion in the US?



I know it looks kinda dorky, and by extension you could risk looking dorky by playing it, but if you close your eyes and just listen, it is really sort of miraculous.



I propose that the accordion become the official instrument of hipsters everywhere. It should be lovingly adopted by them, and thus spread throughout the cool neighborhoods of the world, just like fixie bikes. It's a win-win situation: hipsters get to claim a strange new hobby, and I get to hear awesome accordion music.



Who's with me?

Baguette boycott?

At the risk of sounding like a total asshole, and possibly being deported for heresy, I have to say it:



I'm so sick of baguettes.



I know, right? I sound like a total douchebag. Plus, I never thought it would be possible. But it has happened. I am seriously pining for a taco right now, or a veggie sandwich on -gasp!- wheat bread. There just aren't that many options for a quick lunch here in Paris. You've basically got your crepes or your baguette sandwich. Unfortunately, when you buy one of these baguettes-to-go, the baguette part of the sandwich is usually of pretty average quality, and let's just say that the French seem to prefer restraint when it comes to the toppings. And by that I mean like two slices of ham and cheese, or three slices of salami and a chopped up cornichon. It's more like a faint sprinkling of toppings - a slight hint of sandwichy flavors.

I'm sure this lack of mountainous toppings and sauces is part of the reason why the French are so slim, but even though I tell myself that, I still find myself wishing for maybe just a second layer of salami and or a handful of veggies? Oh well, as the French say, "c'est comme ca", which roughly translates into "that's just the way is". So I guess I'll quit complaining and eat my salami-scented baguette sandwich, since I'm sure that in a few weeks, when I'm back home, I'll be reminiscing about eating Parisien baguettes on the banks of the Seine.

220V + hair = cheveux brulés

Um... so I kinda burned my hair.



I'm still not quite sure what went wrong, because I checked all the technical specifications on my adapter before I left the US. But I must have messed up somehow, because things went terribly awry. I'll post a photo once I find someplace to upload them from my camera, but until then, here's the story:



My second day in Berlin, I woke up to find that my hair was pretty much standing on end. This happens from time to time, and maybe I should just leave my hair alone and be proud of myself for being the only person on the planet who is capable of having a straight-haired 'fro. But of course I don't do that. Instead, I try to tame the hair-beast with my trusty straightening iron. But on this particular day, this generally uneventful process failed horribly, as I watched my hair sizzle and curl up into thick bushels of hay. Have you ever curled ribbon with a pair of scissors? Or melted a plastic straw over a flame? It was kind of like a combination of those two: all the curl of the ribbon, plus all the burny, crinklyness of the melted straw. Not a pretty sight. Of course I quickly stopped using the iron, but it was too late. The damage was done, and I won't be rid of this mess on my head until it grows out enough that I can cut it off. Which I estimate will be about 6 months. Until then, anyone have any ideas for ways to put this stuff to good use? Maybe some sort of super-hip hairstyle? I'm all ears...

Un melange de langues dans ma tete

So I am currently in Paris, taking an intensive French language course for three weeks. It's been one week, and my poor brain is all discombobulated. I took French in high school, but haven't used it since then. That was 15 years ago, if you must know. Something about re-learning this language that has been hibernating in the back of my brain has also seemed to stimulate all the other languages that I have ever learned in my whole life. The strangest words and phrases pop out when I am trying to speak French:

Suddenly "luggage" is "bagagli" (Italian), "with" is "con" (Spanish), "very much" is "gerne" (German) and "I don't know" is "nemidoonam" (Farsi). First of all, let me tell you that if you try to order a cafe con leche in Paris they just look at you funny. Secondly, I find it strange that I can barely conjure up any of these languages when I am actually trying to speak them. But I try to speak French, for some reason all these other languages come spilling out.

I don't know much about the brain, but from my experiences here, I can pretty much guarantee you that there is some sort of language center in the brain, and that mine has turned into a big 'ol mess, from years of neglect. All those unused languages have been slacking off for years, never called upon for duty, so they just sit around and drink all day long and get all up in each others' business. Losers. How can I possibly whip them into shape within three weeks? Ce n'est pas possible!

It's hard to be a baller when your money is the dollar

I had heard that Paris was expensive, but holy crap! I was not pepared for the speed at which I would be hemmorhaging money. Some examples of what I am seeing at the cafés in my neighborhood:

Tea & Cake: 8 euros
Salad with baked goat cheese: 12 euros
Bottle of water at a cafe 4 euros
Cheapest fixed-price lunch: 18 euros

Living in Paris... priceless (?!)

I guess I have to bear in mind that I am staying in the heart of Paris, so it's the most expensive part of the most expensive city in France. But still, it's painful.

BTW, multiply all of those prices by 1.4 to get the value in dollars. With the current exchange rate, even the "5 euro footlongs" at Subway don't really seem like a good value.

Chronic-WHAT?!-cles of New York

That's right folks. I am fresh off of a trip to the Big Apple, and believe you me, this girl took it to the streets. And by that I mean that I walked that whole damn city at least seven times. My goal for the trip was to eat as much good food as possible, focusing of course on the stuff that is very "New York" and that I can't get at home. I would say that the trip was a big success, based on those criteria, although I was not able to try everything on my list. A girl can only eat so much each day, and I found that I was not able to stretch myself past 5 meals per day. Disappointing, I know.

I did not plan it this way, but the days kind of organized themselves into themes.

Day 1: Sort-of Belgian day
Breakfast at Prune, a lovely little place on the Lower East Side. They have 11 different bloody marys on the menu, which initially got me pretty excited. But alas, despite the varied preparations, we found their mary mix not that great. However, I had a "dutch pancake" that was possibly one of the most amazing breakfast items I've ever eaten. It was almost an inch thick, and must have been made with cornmeal, but it was super fluffy and moist and awesome. It was like a skillet-baked corn cake, with sliced prunes baked into the bottom. I am drooling now just thinking about it.

There was a dance parade/festival going on, so we caught up with it in the East Village and walked along until the end. It was kind of like the love parade, but with all different styles of music and dancing, including breakdancing, drum lines and even burlesque girls wearing flashdance-like spandex.

After watching all that dancing, we were hungry so we got some lunch at Pommes Frites in the East Village. All they serve are Belgian fries with mayonnaise. So we got a giant cone full. Yum. I miss eating fries this way - I learned the joy of fries with mayo during my high school days in Germany.

Then did some snacking on street fair food while walking across town. Apparently there are at least 2 street fairs every weekend day during the warm months. Genius! Why can't SF have street fairs every weekend too? And why do the SF street fairs always have to be full of douchebags? But I digress. New York has totally different food at their street fairs. Gyros? 8 different kinds of pickles? Deep fried Oreos? Yes please. BTW, I know these things are definitely NOT Belgian, but we ate them all anyway. Only in America would someone be bold (genius?) enough to deep fry an Oreo.

Now you know that you need more pickle variety in your life. Your welcome.

Deep-Fried Oreos. Enough Said.

Finally on to dinner with some friends at a place called Extra Virgin (referring to the olive oil, get your mind out of the gutter), followed by Belgian ales at "Vol de Nuit". This place was dark, and hidden in the courtyard of a building and reminded me a bit of Berlin.

Schwanky dinner place deserves a schwanky photo.

Belgian beer bar in a courtyard.

Lastly, drinks at Little Branch, a speakeasy-style place that looks pretty non-descript on the outside. It's really just a door on the corner of a dingy building. But that is part of the allure, my friend. When you go in, you walk down a dimly-lit set of stairs into the basement, where it smells delicious like bourbon and citrus and other herbs that are used for making fancy cocktails. I might have had one too many drinks and then proceeded to send drunken text messages. I need someone to build some Mail Goggles for my phone.

Extracting every last drop.

It rained while we were in Little Branch so we walked home around 2am through soggy streets.

Day 2: Day of Pork
This day was pretty epic in terms of eating. We started out at the Spotted Pig, which is a pretty popular spot, and very hard to get in at dinner time. BUT! We avoided all that by going for brunch and didn't have to wait at all. AND they serve their awesome burger at brunch so we got to try that too. I had the bacon hash with poached eggs, but then I was still hungry so I ordered a "dutch baby" as a second breakfast. It's kind of like a crepe.

I guess I am pretty excited about my meal.

After wandering around the West Village for a while, we made our way across town and found - lo and behold! - another street fair. This time, we tried griddled corn cakes with melted mozzerella, pickles, and zappolis. What's a zappoli, you ask? According to the guy selling them, it's fried dough with powdered sugar on top. Please try to imagine this said with a thick NY accent for the full effect. Sure, I'll have some fried dough. Yes, I want the powdered sugar on top. Actually, this was suprisingly good. Like a really fresh donut hole with a crispier crust.

At this point we were nearing the Lower East Side again, so we decided to get some dumplings in nearby Chinatown. We had gotten two different dumpling recommendations so we tried them both. First we stopped in at Dumpling house, where we tried their pork dumplings. They recently raised their prices from 5 for $1 to 4 for $1. That should have tipped us off that it was no longer a hole-in-the-wall. The dumplings were fine, but the place seems to have turned into a machine-like operation, with no love baked into the dumplings anymore. Sad. Then we went over to Joe's Shanghai, where they serve Shanghai-style soup dumplings. This place was also packed, but the dumplings were huge, and filled with tons of delicious juice.

Marvel at how this dumpling is bursting with juice!

After walking around Chinatown some more, our legs were getting pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel for a break. After a quick power nap, we headed back out for more eating. It's a tough job, right? We heard about a nearby wine bar that had giant, old-timey meat slicers, so we had to check it out. It's called Bar Jamon, and it has Spanish wine and tapas. We had a glass of wine, some prosciutto and cheese, and ogled the awesome meat slicers. Then we headed out for a late dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar. Now I have been hearing about about the Momofuku restaurants for a while, even out in SF, so I was really looking forward to trying one of them out. I chose the Ssam Bar over the Ramen Bar because I don't love ramen that much, and the Ssam Bar is newer. And I couldn't get reservations to their fancy restaurant that serves the 3 hour, $175 lunch. So, Ssam Bar it is! We went at 11pm so that we wouldn't have to wait in crazy lines, and yay! we didn't have to wait at all. We then proceeded to order from their all-meat menu. I knew that there weren't any vegetarian dishes, but I kinda thought there would be other stuff served alongside the meat. You know, like when you order a steak and it comes with fries or some veggies or at least something. But that was not the case here. So we basically got a bunch of different meats on plates. All of which were prepared exquisitely, with super fancy ingredients and whatnot, but I have to say that I wasn't really that enamoured of it all. I think you have to both love meat AND love unconventional preparation to really appreciate this place. Personally, I hit a meat wall two-thirds of the way through our meal, and didn't really LOVE any of the dishes. I left feeling both a little bit grody on the inside, and somewhat unsatisfied. Also about $100 poorer. Not cheap for something you don't love.

Meat, I guess I do not love thee enough.

Day 3: Cleanse + Pizza Quest
Still feeling full (and somewhat disgusting) from the Day of Pork, I couldn't really bear the thought of another epic eating day. So we went to a small cafe called SimonSips for granola and coffee, and then headed over to the Google NY office to spend the afternoon doing some work. I also went for a jog along the west side of the city. There is a great waterfront path for biking and jogging that goes along the water, so I managed to get some exercise and hopefully burn off some of the previous day's dumplings.

Finally, we headed out to dinner with some other Google people. We were on a quest for great NY pizza and decided to go to Sam's in Brooklyn because it would be able to seat a group and wasn't too far. Sadly, when we arrived in Cobble Hill, Sam's was unexpectedly closed due to a family emergency. So we headed a few blocks over to a place called Lucali's which was also supposed to be good, but where we had to wait until 9:30pm to get seated. They are a BYOB, so it was fun to buy and bring in our own wine, but I have to say that the pizza was just good, not great. I definitely thought the pizza that I had at DiFara's on my last trip to NY was vastly superior. But I guess it's all a matter of taste, as some people in my group preferred this pizza.

I don't want to sound like a douchebag, but I can't believe I waited 2 hours for this pizza.

View of Manhattan from Brooklyn, while waiting 2 hours for pizza.

Day 4: Park Day
After a day of eating relatively little, we were ready for another hearty breakfast. So we headed to the Clinton Street Baking Company for their famed pancakes. And man were they good. Now, I am not usually a pancake lover. I generally think that they are pretty bland and boring. However, these pancakes were a-mazing. I think they were made with buttermilk, so they actually had a really nice flavor. They were really light and fluffy and soft - not chewy or rubbery like some pancakes, and they also contained lots of blueberries, which is always yummy. Finally, they were served with a crack-like syrup, that I believe was actually made by cooking butter into the syrup that you are basically making caramel. Holy crap that is genius. Why doesn't all syrup have butter cooked in? I will never eat plain syrup again. Get thee to the Clinton Baking Co. for your own pancake revelation.

Best. Pancakes. Ever.

This was our last day in NY, and the only day with nice weather, so we rented some bikes for a ride through Central Park. First though, we had to get to Central Park, which required riding about 30 blocks up 6th Avenue in heavy workday traffic. Yikes! It was a bit rough, but luckily most of the cars are cabs and they actually know what they are doing and look out for bikes. Riding through the park was a nice respite from all the walking we had been doing, so we rode all the way to the top of the park and back down again. Then we crossed the city on the crazy streets again, and headed down the east side to the Brooklyn Bridge. The plan was to bike across the bridge and try another pizza place, called Grimaldi's, in Brooklyn. Alas, when we finally arrived there, we found a giant line of tourists waiting to do the same thing, and we didn't want to wait in line for 2 hours like suckas. So back over the bridge we went, across town again, and returned the bikes.

Riding is better than walking. You get to yell at other tourists to get out of the bike lane.

By this time we were getting pretty hungry so we walked over to the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park for their highly recommended burgers and shakes. We had to wait in a bit of a line, but their shakes were worth it. They make something called "frozen custard", which I guess is basically ice cream made in a soft serve machine and served like soft serve. The result is the taste of ice cream, with an amazingly silky consistency. And they use really premium ingredients like Valrhona chocolate, so the flavors are really good too. Their burgers were good too, but the ice cream-related items were really fantastic. I had a root beer float and half of Dave's chocolate shake and I wanted to go back for a sundae but just couldn't muster up any more room in my stomach.

That cup contains a gold-mine of deliciousness.

An awesome day to spend in the park.

The last day in NY was coming to an end. I bought some snacks for the road, and headed over to the airport for the next leg of my journey: Berlin!

Pulled pork torta from kitchenette

I am sitting on a curb in the dogpatch, but I am delirious with joy right now.

Half-Iron!!!

I did it! I completed my first triathlon. And not just any triathlon, mind you, but a half-ironman that is regarded as the toughest half-ironman in the country. Heck yes!

I finished the course in just over 8 hours, which is a fairly long time, so I can't exactly say that I spanked it, but given that this was my first time tri-ing, I'm pretty pleased with finishing it at all.

Details on the course:

--1.2 mile swim: took me 45 mins. not too shabby. feeling good.

That's me on the right, coming out of the water.

--56 mile bike: took me 4 hours and 22 mins, including changing my flat tire. Not bad, but legs were sore & tired after this. What, I now have to run 13 miles?!

Still feelin' good (before I got a flat tire).

--13 mile run: 2 hours and 49 mins. super slow. legs hurting. hard to keep running. alternated with walking, especially up the steep hills.

Yay! I finally get to stop!
BTW, it took me 8 hours (not 9:23 showing on the clock).

Running across the finish line: priceless! (especially since you get to stop moving at that point)

Enough about me...

Time to check in on Lola, and yup, the verdict is "cute as ever".

This is the half of her toy snake that is still intact. Let's just say that the head half suffered a more painful demise.

I proclaim myself "more awesome than expected"

14.5 miles, baby! That is how much I ran last Sunday! AND they were hilly miles, to boot.

So that is officially the most I have ever (and probably will ever) run in my life. I did it in about 2 hours and 40 mins, which means that I was doing 11-minute miles, which considering the length and hilly-ness of the route, I think is pretty decent. It was a freakishly hot day in SF, so I actually waded into the bay afterward to cool off. My dog, also went into the bay, and proceeded to wreak havoc by chasing the swimmers, who had to swim her back to shore because she was being so naughty. But that's beside the point. Let's focus on what's important here: I of little athletic endowment ran 14.5 miles! Yep. I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I also did a pretty tough bike ride on Saturday (the day before the run of glory). 60 miles through Marin, and about 4700 feet of climbing. It was a beautiful day, and we biked through Nicasio, Point Reyes, and then up the back of Mt. Tam, and along the "Seven Sisters" (hills that traverse the side of Tam).

Look! I am not dead-last! There are others behind me.

That weekend of extreme biking and running were part of "peak week" - my hardest week of training, two weeks before the actual race. From here on out, I taper down my workouts and rest a bit before the actual race. And I am supposed to eat a lot of carbs and salt. Awesome! I can totally get with that program.

The other, less fortunate consequence of peak week was that I got a sinus infection :( Apparently riding around all day in the pollen-rich countryside, with allergens assaulting your nose can clog up your sinuses and trigger an infection. Stupid sinuses! I felt pretty crappy for a couple of days, but then I went to the doc and he gave me antibiotics and now I am feeling oh-so-much better already. Yay for science!

So that's pretty much it until race day, which is rapidly approaching. Until then, I'll be "tapering" on my couch, with a bag of chips and some gatorade.

Taming the urban jungle (in my backyard)

Today I kicked my backyard's ass. With a little help from my dad, my (admittedly tiny) yard was transformed from a Jumanji-like mess, to a fairly under-control, BBQ-friendly place.

Before:

Unruly mess.

After:

One pick-axe and some hedge-clippers later... Muy Sexy!