With our move at work to a temporary space while the rennovate the office, I've lost the luxury of 9-5 updates.  On the other hand, I'm paired with one of my programmers in the same cramped cubicle, and I think his output has increased.

Tworavens SF trip proceeds apace.  Last weekend was (another) Napa trip.  He likes wine.  He likes Napa.  I'm cool with that.  We spent a great weekend in a rental house, the De Mar House.  It's a really lovely restored Victorian in Downtown Napa, on First street.

Really Victorian, where every artifact of gimcrackery is displayed out and proud.  It was an ideal time in Napa.  We had relentless sunshine and warm days, and so so many things were in bloom along Route 29.  You can sort of tell by this rose, that was larger than my hand span.  It was typical of the other bushes on the property.

We hit Sterling Vineyards, the most "Disney-esque" because of their cable car gondolas (no parking at the top of the hill where the winery rests).

We then hit Charles Krug, originally owned by the a Mondavi brother, but it's own entity.  Also home to the oldest wine press in Napa.

We then went to Chateau Potelle, one I'd not been to, but one with an outstanding Chardonnay.  I didnt' get pictures of the beautiful, hillside vineyard, because we'd arrived late, based on old data that indicated they're open until 6pm.  They're not anymore, they're open until 5pm, but with a little Jennconvincing, they were super nice and let us sample.

Did I mention the outstanding Chardonnay? I bought five bottles and one late harvest Zinfandel.  Woo!

That night, we went to a leisurely Tra Vigne dinner.  It was the first night they'd opened the patio for dining, so we took them up on the offer.  Even the waiter liked it -- "Less crowded, more relaxed," and it was.

The next day, I decided that 2R needed to see Copia, even though I was just there. 

I'm glad we went.  Last month it was Spanish wines and food, and this month it's Australian.  2R likes the bold Syrahs and such the produce, and food was represented by, oddly, ginger and macadamia nuts.  Macadamia nuts are, apparently, Australian in origin, they explained.  Hawai'i just has better P.R. for their produce in America.

Last night, 2R, Z-Man, and I went to Pasha for dinner.  Belly dancing, tent-like atmosphere, and flaming cheese, couscous, eggplant, and such figured prominently, though not as prominent as the dancer's bust.  Goodness.

Tonight Richie Rich is hosting a farewell at his place, and I'll be making that lemongrass tofu dish.  Don't have the time (or, as I said, privacy to explore others at this point, and at least it will be new to 2R).  Friday evening, I've managed to wrestle Z-Man away from his work before 7pm (poor thing) and we three are going to hit Teatro ZinZanni.  New show with Yamil Borges . . . whoever she is.  I've taken off Friday day at work to spend tourist time with 2R.  I'm looking forward to the break and sleeping in.

Satuday evening is his departure, although we may be having a brunch with an out-of-town Pen E-Pal-er of mine:  Troy from Sometimeshappy is visiting The City, and I'm hoping to take him out for that drink I promised. The drink may be Mimosas!

That night, alas, we have an upgrade for a system at work that I have to be on point for.  After that's over, with well-loved but nontheless departed guests absent, I really, really hope I get the chance to recharge my batteries.  Z-Man suggested massages -- on the 1st of May, I had a 10-minute Employee Appreciation Day massage at UCSF.  Each year they bring in a masseuse and you get some chair time.  Though tiny amounts of time, they make a huge difference in my state of mind.  I always schedule it at the end of the day, so I can get to leave after having one.  But perhaps an extended time at Harbin or something?

P.S. Just finished an excellent book about human cadavers and their uses, Stiff by Mary Roach.  It is a truly excellent, entertaining, often gross but more often fascinating look at What Comes After for everyone.  Want to talk more about it here, but I don't have the time this moment.  She's an excellent, San Francisco based writer who's written for Salon, GQ, and some other publications.  She sourced both UCSF and UF a couple of times, which made me smile.  She's got a dry wit that doesn't intrude over much, but you can tell when she's skirting the borders of her own tolerance for decay and death:  she usually gets very, very funny.  The hardest part for me wasn't the corpses in various states of decay out in a yard of a University, each in their own general state of melting in order to better fine-tune times of death at crime scenes -- yes bodies five days old are different than bodies seven days old, but I don't think they improve with age like wines.  It was the uses of dead human flesh (and sometimes not so dead) for human consumption.  However, a recipe called "Scream Three Times" was . . . well, don't click on this link.

Last week was the first in a while without posting.  I was on point at work while my boss was at his partner's mom's funeral, and I didn't have time, though there were several things I'd have mentioned, not the least of which was Kurt Vonnegut's death.  I was sad to hear the old curmudgeon passed on, as he was one of my favorite writers, and I was especially fond of him back in public school, where we were given the requiste short story, "Harrison Bergeron" to read, and a polite suggestion to read Slaughterhouse Five and others.  I really loved his wit and inverted way of looking at the world.

There were a few items from various blogs I read regularly that I didn't link to, because it would have been a linkfest-heavy linky week, and I really didn't want to do that.  There's only so many YouTube posts you can do before you become too much of a conduit.  A few other things I'd read still managed to spike a little good old rage and annoyance, but they registered mostly as internal blips than anything I really wanted to share, or, worse yet, be seen to actually take seriously (including, but not limited to, the abortion ban upheld, sex ed, and the general continuing perniciousness of an executive branch out of control).  I'll share one thing though that has changed my life:  Songs to Wear Pants To.  (Thanks go here.)  Artistic enterprise at work.

Apart from work, there was a little time for play.  My new computer arrived, and I've been meaning to take a picture of it in all its glory.  The Green Machine reigns Supreme.  I am content.

Hey, Mom & Dad! Play more video games.  All the cool, uh, seniors are doing it.

Tworavens is visiting me since Saturday, and he's here for a couple of weeks.  It's nice to see him and have him around.  I think we're making another trip to Napa and/or Sonoma this coming weekend.  Going to try and stay for a night or two again.  Alas, Z-Man will be out of state, in Las Vegas, for work-related travel, and I'm sad he won't be there.  We had, as has been mentioned, an excellent time, and I'm sure he'd wish to relive as much of it as he could. 

Unlike our previous visits, I think I'll be doing more home cooking this time around.  Better for both our budgets as well as fun to do.  Tonight:  homemade black pepper fettuccini and garlic-sautéed fiddlehead ferns with an arugala-basil pesto.  Side salad of mixed greens with fennel, tomato, and Annie's Goddess dressing (which is really excellent).

A few pictures from Napa, downloaded freshly on MY NEW COMPUTER!! Wooo!

An absolutely gorgeous morning, viewed from our inn balcony.

Another lovely sunrise.

Note the geese below . . .

They woke us each morning.  Louder than roosters.

Our first foray:  Copia.  Surprisingly fun place.

The entry fountain by the gardens of Copia.  You can spend a lot of time just in the gardens . . .

And I did.  Here's some rosemary lavender with grapevine buds.

But wonderful flowers are to be seen everywhere.  These were at Frog's Leap winery. 

Quick shot of Napa town street.

The impressive Darioush. I'm waiting for their Viognier release for this year.

More later, I hope.

Z-Man, on an impulse buy, got me a tajine.  This very one pictured, in fact.  (Hopefully pictured.  Xanga's being pissy about uploads.  Here's the link if the pic doesn't work.  Bah, won't upload the jpg.  Have to use a crappy GIF).

I dig most Mediterranean region food and northeast African food like Ethiopian/Eritrean as well.  So this was an awesome thing, right? Well, yes.  But nearly every recipe I searched for began the same way:  "The tagine (or tajine) is a Moroccan stew that gets its name from the cooking dish used to prepare it."  And then it goes on to tell me how to make it in a dutch oven or regular pot.  Muh-huh?

And so began a two day research in just how the heck to use a tajine.  I learned quite a bit -- some tajines are only for serving, some are ready for the oven and some can also be used on the stove top.  This one is oven-ready, but I'll probably experiment using a heat diffuser on the range to see if I can do it that way.

I also learned that preserved lemons (lemons are incised deeply and packed in kosher salt for a month) are an essential ingredient in Moroccan tajine preparation -- and were hard to get at a local grocer.  I haven't checked Rainbow yet, but if anyone has it outside of a specialty store, I'll bet they do.  I also learned that Tunisian tajines were different from Moroccan ones, or at least they seem to insist on a difference.  However, I also learned about bharat, a blend of seasonings used in Tunisian tajines.  This seasoning got my attention:  dried rosebuds rubbed through a sieve and mixed with black pepper and cinnamon.  It just so happens, Jennconspiracy bought some dried rosebuds for me a while back, and, short of a few tea infusions, I really haven't found a use for them.  Until now, that is!

But still, the simple art of preparing a tajine using an actual tajine wasn't as forthcoming as you might imagine.  Finally, I discovered a forum for Moroccan expats, one of whom asked about the differences in north African tajine preparation between Tunisia and Morocco.  There, I got the best advice possible:  food goes in tajine, tajine goes into oven.

Well, really.  It was both the most unhelpful and the most helpful advice I'd seen yet.  It was unhelpful because I imagine that there might be a little more to it than that, but helpful in the fact that it liberated me to just do whatever the hell seemed right.  It also reminded me that a tajine is a portable dish used by nomadic people, or at least formerly nomadic people.  Originally, they'd dig a firepit, fill it with hot coals, and put the tajine, a ceramic, in the coals to cook for hours.  The conical shape of the tajine meant that the moisture would rise through the ingredients and fall back as condensate into the dish.  It lends itself to auto-braising the food into super-tenderness and keeping the aromatics and seasonings circulating throughout the dish.

Finally, I sort of hit the jackpot with a monkfish tajine recipe.  I'm not a fish eater, but the recipe was very helpful in terms of assembling the dish.  I'd found a recipe on Chow.com I really liked, which of course didn't exlpain how to make it in a tajine, but which sounded too good to pass up.  Here's the original recipe, and here's my tajine-ready version (picture courtesy Chow.com).

Vegetable Tajine

Olive Oil
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
cumin, fresh ground
cinnamon, fresh ground
ginger, grated fresh
turmeric, grated fresh
3 cloves garlic (sliced thinly or pressed)
3 medium carrots, peeled and medium diced
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 to 1/2 cup vegetable broth or stock
pinch of saffron
1 head cauliflower, large dice
1/4 cup capers (or picholine olives, which I can't eat because they tend to give me migraines)
2 cans garbanzo beans
zest and juice of three small lemons (or a couple of big ones - if you have preserved lemons, use one instead)
1/2 cup dried currants
salt and pepper

2 cups Israeli couscous (or regular if you like)
4 cups water
bharat, to taste
1 cup whole almonds, freshly toasted and chopped
1/2 cup sliced scallions
dollops of Greek-style yoghurt

Preheat oven to 350°

1) First, the sautée.  I'm guessing that a range-ready tajine could be used for the initial sautée, but I didn't want to risk mine just yet.  So in a regular large pan, heat up some olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add the onions and sautée until just translucent, but no more than five minutes or so. 

Meanwhile, add the saffron to the broth to steep for a bit. 

Also, I highly recommend either a pan in the oven under the tajine rack or line your oven bottom with foil.  The tajine will most likely sputter some liquid.  On the plus side, my self-cleaning oven cleans itself pretty well, I've discovered.

2) Add the cinnamon and cumin.  I didn't list amounts, because I never measure spices.  It's kind of an "in the moment" for me, depending on my mood as well as the quality/strength of the spices.  Stir it up and sautée for another minute.

3) Add the ginger and turmeric.  Again, I didn't mention measurements, although I probably used somewhere around a tablespoon of ginger and 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, maybe a bit more.  The original recipe didn't call for turmeric, but I like it and it adds come color with the saffron.  Stir it in well and sautée for another minute.

4) Add the carrots and some salt and pepper.  The carrots will get more tender in the tajine, but this gets them started.  About 3 minutes should do the trick.

5) Now we're ready to put it into the tajine.  The onions/carrot mixture goes in first on the bottom.  Then layer on the tomatoes, garbanzos, cauliflower, and capers or olives on top.  Add a bit more salt and pepper.  Keep it all towards the center.  You may have a lot of food.  Then, take the broth and saffron mixture and slowly drizzle it over the dish.  We don't want to overflow the liquid.  As the tajine cooks, the liquid will rise to the rim of the tajine where the lid of the pot rests.  It's not a perfect cover, and it's not meant to be.  The liquid forms a kind of seal and circulates back into the dish.  As I mentioned it will likely sputter a bit as it cooks.  Aren't you glad you listened to me and lined your oven bottom with foil?

You can add as much broth as you think you can do without making a big mess.  This is a stew, after all!

6) Cook it in the oven for about 30 minutes.  Give it a stir after this time to circulate things a bit more.  This by far was the hardest part to do, since my tajine was quite stuffed with food, I had to be careful.  Plus, it was hot!  Add the lemon juice now as well and stir that in.

7) Let it cook for another 15 minutes or so.  Check that the veggies are of desired tenderness, particularly the cauliflower.  If they're tender or just getting tender, now's the time to add the zest and the currants.  Let it cook for another 10-15 minutes, or until the dried currants have reconstituted in the moisture.

The couscous (do it while you're baking the tajine)

1) Bring the water to a boil.  Put the couscous in a sealable container with a dash of salt, splash of olive oil, and a dash of bharat.  Pour the boiling water over the couscous and stir well.  Seal the container and let it cook in.

2) After the moisture is absorbed and while it's still hot, liberally sprinkle more bharat on top.  This will keep it aromatic for when it's time to serve it.

To serve, scoop some couscous into a bowl.  Top the couscous with the tajine.  Add a dollop of yoghurt on top.  Then liberally sprinkle some almonds over that.  Then sprinkle some sliced scallions over that.  Yum!

Notes:

a) I'm still working with the tomatoes in terms of amount and timing of when it goes into the tajine.  I think a whole can might be a bit much.  Maybe half a can? That's also a lot of liquid, and it could probably stand to be broth-ier.

b) I made the bharat by taking a handful of dried rosebuds (food-grade ones are probably available in your local Indian specialty store; don't get candied ones), a light dash of cinnamon, and around a teaspoon of peppercorns and put it all into the coffee grinder that I long ago commissioned into becoming a spice mill.  It smells heavenly.

Just met RichieRich's Chase, the puppy sheltie.  So tiny and cute!!! He reminds us of a hedgehog.  Much cuter though. Check his blog for a picture.

Pictures still pending,but on the walk home from Richie's, Z-Man saw a dog poop, please-clean-up poem on McAllister.  I missed it, but it inspired a limerick.

A dog from the Western Addition
In front of my house was a-shittin'
His owner, some fag,
Forgot a poop bag.
Next time, queen, get a kitten.

Thank you, thank you.

Ahhh, vacation feels so good.  Z-Man and I are in Napa Valley, at the River Terrace Inn.  Pictures will follow.  Highlights here.

Thursday:  Arrival.  Spent an hour by the pool at the hotel.  Ahhh, warm and sunny.  I got some sun.  This evening, we went to La Toque for dinner.  This was a score by Z-Man.  His pal had a gift certificate for the restaurant, wine pairing included.  Wow.  Much like Michael Mina, it was a tasting-based menu, though not with the profligacy evinced at MM.  Amazing pairings, and a great sommelier who pointed us to local wineries for our Saturday excursion. 

Friday:  COPIA.  An underrated gem that I'm going to take 2R to when he visits California at the end of April.  Z-Man was enchanted, as was I.  We had a good Wine Tasting 101 class, but my favorite event was a wine blending class.  We used traditional Bordeaux varietals, Sauv Blanc, Merlot, Cab Franc, Malbec, and Petite Verdot.  We got to make our own percentage blend from these single varietals, and not only that, but we had a whole bottle made of our blend, we corked it with a corking machine, and then even wrapped the top in foil in another slightly scary machine.  Dinner was Ristorante Allegria. 

Saturday:  We actually went to wineries.  We started at Frog's Leap, then Cliff Lede, Darioush, Chandon and the restaurant therein, and, by far the best experience yet, we had a tour of Hendry winery, a very small winery that used to sell to local vintiners, who decided to do his own thing.  The tour was led by George Hendry himself, the elder owner (his nephew is the next generation).  It was a small affair, and had been reccommended to us by the Sommelier at La Toque.  Mr Hendry is a physicist by training, vintiner/chemist by necessity.  He was hilarious and no-nonsense and reminded me of a beloved but difficult college professor.  It was a very unique experience, largely because he didn't retread wine making, but gave his opinion and insight into his personal experiences making wine, the heartbreak and the challenge.  2R will get along with him splendidly...

More later.  Tonight, we go to Tra Vigne for supper.

This may has well been written by The Onion.  But it's the London Times online.

Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, the Pope has said.

Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, Benedict XVI said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to “admit blame and promise to sin no more”, they risked “eternal damnation — the Inferno”.

Hell “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more”, he said.

That settles that! But wait . . .

Vatican officials said that the Pope — who is also the Bishop of Rome — had been speaking in “straightfoward” language “like a parish priest”. He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that Hell is a “state of eternal separation from God”, to be understood “symbolically rather than physically”.

I don't know if this is the newspaper engaging in some good old-fashioned Anglican Catholic-baiting, which has a long and proud history in the country, or if this is a beautiful example of reinterpretation by sane underlings of a slightly addled boss.  "No, no, no . . . he was just speaking to you as if you were gullible idiots from the 19th century or earlier." Thanks, that makes it so much better! It's as good as the priests that needed to interpret the Sybil's babble at the Oracle into something coherent. 

Even better, it reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Pyramids, where the High Priest essentially runs the country, and the Pharoah and even the gods are subservient to his vision of how things are supposed to run -- or, in fact, remain completely stagnant and static just as they have for thousands of years.  This is because, it turns out, the High Priest is thousands of years old and had the one pyramid built that actually does work and can keep you the same age forever.  New heir to the throne, Pteppic, must come to terms with becoming a ventriloquist's puppet to the High Priest:

"Therefore I will have dinner sent in," said the priest. "It will be
roast chicken."

"I hate chicken."

Dios smiled. "No sire. On wednesdays the King always enjoys chicken, sire."

Can't find the exact quote where Pteppic pronounces judgement and has it completely re-translated by Dios, this High Priest, to be exactly the opposite of what he said.

I'm re-reading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of my favorite books of all times.  I'm just at the scene where the "Duke" and the "King" have stolen aboard the raft and are about to fleece a whole town.  There's a revival going on, and the "King" spins a whole yarn about being a pirate so moved by the revival, he mends his ways then and there, and a joyous crowd takes up a collection for him.  It echoes the scene earlier where the new judge in town tries to reform Huck's father, and Pap declares he's a changed man who's seen the light, and everyone cries and celebrates, and they give him money.  That he proceeds to piss away on whiskey and go on a bender.

That has less to do with the Papal declaration/clarification, other than the fact that one gets the sense that Pope "Eggs" Benedict wishes we were as gullible as we used to be, just like the suckers at the revival and the town judge.  It would be so much easier if people hadn't questioned any of that stuff about hell and sin and such.  beware snakeskin shysters and, of course, high priests.

An amusing diversion:  my email has mostly been restored.  I've reinitialized the spam filters and blacklists, and geaaahhh, what a load of shit I'm getting.  It's amazing that even when my account was essentially out of room, I still managed to get spam sent to my inbox, but somehow without any legitimate email coming through. 

But here's what my spam filter looks like right now, as far as the rules I've created which are working for 65% of my spam:

Subject: field contains survey

Subject: field contains opinion

Subject: field contains scholarship

Subject: field contains balding

Subject: field contains degree

Subject: field contains hair

Subject: field contains singles

Subject: field contains singls

Subject: field contains dating

Subject: field contains price

Subject: field contains match

Subject: field contains single

Subject: field contains ringtone

Subject: field contains over 30

Subject: field contains ring tone

Subject: field contains Oprah

Subject: field contains debt

Subject: field contains cell phone

Subject: field contains inkjet

Subject: field contains ink

Subject: field contains mobile phone

Subject: field contains mate

Subject: field contains make some money

Subject: field contains settle down

Subject: field contains survey

So if you send me any mail to my home account, don't mention Oprah, making money, or cell phones and ringtones in the subject! This isn't so bad, actually.  There was a time when I was getting every conceivable variation on Viagra with random punctuation and character swaps stuck in to foil filters. Vi/gr!a, V|agr3a, V!/gr/, and so many, many more.  At one time, covering that was taking like 25% of my filter rules.  I gave up finally trying to keep up with the nearly illegible contortions, but it mostly went away to the occasional 5 or 6 that I could deal with.

 Don't know how many of my readers have pets, but there has been an isolated rash of pet deaths related to pet food contaminated with a rodenticide illegal in the USA, but not China, where the wheat that was contaminated came from.  The chemical that's toxic to pets, aminopterin, is, ironically, used to treat cancer in humans.

In any case, about fifteen pets have died at this posting, all with kidney failure.  Not hugely widespread by any means, but still.  The manufacturer, Menu Foods, makes pet food under 91 brands (holy crap), among them Iams and Eukanuba.

This is a link to Menu Foods with a listing of the brands that are on a voluntary recall list.  Check out the March 16th post, with lists broken out by cat or dog and then brand name.  The site lists code ranges for products that may be contaminated.  I think both the manufacturer and some retail outlets are giving refunds, but your mileage may vary.

I use Wellness brand cat food, which isn't owned by the company nor affected by the recall, but if you've any concern if your preferred brands are, check out the link.

This has been a public service announcement.  Hee.

P.S. My personal email seems to be down for some reason.  If you're trying to get a hold of me via that means, don't.  Leave a message here or try my work email, if you have it.

Plenty to rant about, not enough time in which to rant.  Changed the video -- Amy Winehouse's "Rehab."  Catchy.  Jewish Jersey girl can sing.

I have no words for this.  Just . . . wow.

Village Dog Adopts A Wild Monkey

Mar. 9 - A village dog adopts a wild monkey and the two become inseparable.

When severe flood waters hit northern Mozambique in 2002, causing misery and extensive damage to property and crops, many animals were left to fend for themselves. But villagers in Caia witnessed a bizarre friendship between a dog and a monkey.

A skinny dog emerged from the bush with a tiny monkey clinging to its back.

The villagers have named the pair Billy and Kiko, and they've been inseparable ever since.