February 2003 Archives

We were hosting our book group on Wednesday, and once again, we put off coming up with what to serve until the very last minute. Jennifer wanted home made pizza, but I figured we should take advantage of what the Swiss call "Fonduewetter" (cold and nasty weather) and make some cheese fondue.

I wanted to try Fondue "Moitie-Moitie", but couldn't get Vacherin cheese - Whole Foods doesn't carry it and Central Market was out of it. I decided to try this Ostschweizer Fondue recipe instead. Again, I couldn't get all the ingredients, so I substituted Gruyere for some of the Appenzeller and hard cider for the apple wine.

It turned out great. The Appenzeller fondue I usually make uses white wine and Kirsch, but I think I prefer the taste of cider and Calvados. It's a bit less in-your-face. The stewed apples also complemented the cheese quite well.

Well we got all iced in overnight. This morning the temperature was 20F and it's now hovering around 27F. Since the roads here are covered with ice, I won't try to get in my car until at least after noon - by that time the temperature should be above freezing and hopefully most of the ice off the streets. Although I do have three bridges between home and work, and one of them is on an incline.

We bundled up and took Homer for a walk in the park this morning. There was no wind, so it was quite pleasant. We walked in the grass since the sidewalk was too slippery. It took Homer a while to get used to the ice and he wiped out a couple of times. He's sometimes too funny not to laugh at, but he sure is enjoying being with us in the warm house.

Just the other day I was musing how I missed the snow and "real" winter. Today we've had winter central-Texas style - nasty freezing rain and sleet. I sneaked out of work early because i felt bad about Homer being in the freezing weather and barely made it to the car without slipping - there must have been half an inch of solid ice on the sidewalk.

I had to wait for good ten minutes for my windows to thaw out enough for me to dare to get on the highway. The trip home in slow slipping traffic took about three times as long as usual, but I made it OK and even managed to pull into the garage - iced over driveway and all. I did get to see a pretty big ice-covered branch snap off a tree under the weight of the ice and strong wind.

Luckily Homer was in good shape. He must have remembered or figured out what the dog house is for, since although his fur was cold, he was almost dry. He won't get a walk tonight, that's for sure.

I'm still waiting for Jennifer to arrive. I tried calling her from my company's parking lot but it took several attempts to get through. Sprint PCS was apparently overloaded (I bet there will be broken power and telephone cables before the night is over).

According to this Wired News article, a Nigerian diplomat was killed by an irate victim of the Nigerian Scam. The shooter was a 72(!) year old man and the shooting happened in my city of birth, Prague, Czech Republic.

I never really thought about how international spam is (despite the copious Spam en español I receive almost daily). And it's difficult to imagine how desperate you have to become to go and shoot someone because they are similar to what the scammers pretended to be. Being 72 and completely broke did it for this man, I guess.

I surfed over to the the Department of Homeland Security website, ready.gov and couple of things jumped out at me.

First, it's beautifully designed. Nice layout, blank on white non-serif text, clean iconic images - much more elegant than most other government or commercial websites.

Second, some if the info makes you go "well, duh!". Stuff like "stay far away and get the heck out in case of a Nuclear Blast".

Third, what do they have against Austin? The page that informs you about Radiation Threat has a graphic showing a dirty bomb going off in Texas. Not in the middle of Texas. Not in Houston. No siree, right here at home in Austin. Is there something they are trying to tell us? Do I really need to make a duct-tape run to Home Depot?

Well, at least they have the Biological Threats spread all over Missouri which is a little farther away.

The gourmet club dinner was another success. I made the semit, which turned out great, and the pita which was OK, but not too impressive. If I ever make the pita again, I'll probably make a starter and use some whole-wheat flour to give it a more complex flavor. And bake it on a cookie sheet. Jfer's tahini and tomato salad were yummy, too.

Susan and Ken made a wonderful soup with rice and some green vegetable I don't recall. Lots of subtle flavors. They also had a fava bean/olive/egg side dish and bought baba ganush which went great with the semit.

John an Lynn brought wonderfully grilled chicken over bananas that were marinated in garlic and other "strange" flavors. A very interesting and surprisingly good combination. They also had stuffed grape leaves which I usually do not like, but in this case loved.

Our new guest, Andy and Becky, brought a delicious corn-bread-like almond desert with whipped cream. I served Turkish coffee and mint tea with it.

Two thumbs up for Egyptian food. This would be another reason to visit the place (I only remember food from my travels, anyway...)

We've been following and really enjoying the Fire Within documentary on BravoTV for the last couple of weeks and today I learned in the paper (and Jfer on the radio) that Cirque Du Soleil is coming to town. The show that's coming is Alegria and looks pretty neat.

So I quickly plunked almost $500 on my credit card (ouch). In less than three months we'll have a group of seven going to the big top - woo, woo!

I struck gold tonight. This semit recipe turned out wonderfully. The pretzels are fluffy and light and taste great.

Jfer originally found this semit recipe in Memories of a Lost Egypt. But that one calls for lard! That just does not sound very halal to me...

Our gourmet club dinner is coming up this Friday and we're doing Egyptian cuisine (contemporary). I've been scouring the Internet for recipes for bread from that region, and so far have tried two, without being completely satisfied. It's kind of hard to know what to shoot for if you've never eaten it (I know what baguette is supposed to look/taste like, but not so for 'Eeish baladi').

The first recipe I tried was for a typical flat bread. It actually tasted pretty good, but it was rather dry - more like a cracker than a pita. I may have rolled it out too thin. Also, I think I should have used (some) whole wheat flour.

Yesterday I tried this Middle Eastern Barley Flat Bread. The dough was really, really dry (2 cups of flour with 3/4 cup of liquid!) and hardly rose at all (plus what's up with using both yeast and baking soda as leavening?). The bread was edible but quite dense. I wonder if something got lost in the translation when they put up the recipe.

I think I might use this recipe for the flat bread.

Jennifer also found a cookbook with a recipe for semit, a kind of Egyptian pretzel, that sound really good. I'll definitely make those.

I have experienced fast and friendly customer service today - how weird can you get?

A couple of weeks ago I tried booting my iMac with the Norton System Works CD that I had bought last fall. It failed repeatedly and I eventually went to their site to see what's up. Turn out I can't boot up my iMac with the version I have. OK, I ordered a replacement CD and yesterday it showed up at my front door.

I tried booting off the CD and still not luck. This time I was getting the dreaded bomb and all. After I took a closer look at the CD, I noticed it had a crack in it (I suspect shipping). OK, it's not that big of a deal since I now have an external drive that I can boot off of, but still, I figured I'd give them a call and see what they'll say. Incredibly enough, I wasn't on the phone for very long before it was picked up by a courteous support guy, Nate, who empathized with my plight and promised to FedEx a replacement copy. Just like that!

Nate, wherever you are, you rock!

Our third 1st date anniversary was this weekend. We didn't really plan ahead, but wanted to see a play, as we try to make our custom. Jennifer gave me a couple of options on Friday and I picked for us to go to see Twisted Olivia which is playing at the Zach. It's a one man reinterpretation of Oliver Twist. Everett Quinton is a very versatile actor and brought many very distinct characters to life, but we felt the whole play was lacking. The setup for him to do Oliver Twist was just too contrived and there did not seem a reason for it (he could have come up with something that paralleled the story or one or more characters in it). Some of the effects were gimmicky and the overall flow was uneven. Still, it was cool to see how he transformed into different people, especially when he was doing a scene with two or more people in it.

I must say that for me, getting my wisdom teeth pulled or today's apico is much less traumatic than going for a regular dentist's visit. What you don't remember does you no harm is now my motto.

Jfer took me to the oral surgeons. I didn't have to wait long and was put into a dentist's chair (no nasty drill looming around, either), hooked up to the monitor (my blood pressure is nicely low) and received nitrous (I'm not sure what for, but hey - it's fun). Soon the doctor arrived, chatted for a while while I'm floating around, and gave me an IV to knock me out, which I hardly felt (if that's what the nitrous was for, they should use it when you donate blood). I tried to pay attention to passing out but somehow did not. Pretty soon I'm being patted and told it's time to get up and go to the recovery room. There I got to snooze for a little longer before Jfer drove me home, where I climbed into the bed for the next five hours.

So right now my lip feels swollen but looks OK. I'm on some über-ibuprofen and in no pain at all - I don't think I'll need the prescription pain killer, which I'm quite happy about. Overall, a not so bad experience (except for the cost, of course).

Also, I (and Homer) discovered that one cannot whistle when one's lip is numb.

My dentist discovered last October that I had an abscessed tooth, although I didn't and still do not feel any pain in it. Well, the new year is here (with dental benefits and all) and I'm taking care of it. Tomorrow Jennifer's taking me for my apicoectomy which is a Latin word meaning "a mouthful of hurt". She had the same procedure done about a year ago and fared pretty well. She opted for nitrous oxide whereas I'm going to get knocked out. Maybe I'm chicken, but I do not want to remember any of it. Or maybe she's just a junkie who likes getting a buzz.

I'll get to take off work tomorrow and spend the afternoon in a daze, feeding on apple sauce and pudding.

Apple has released iMovie 3 which I have promptly upgraded to and nothing was now standing between me and the video that was captured before, during and after our wedding. Except for limited disk space, that is. So today I picked up a 120GB FireWire hard drive at CompUSA today (they have a good deal on them) and already have some 30 gigs of video digitized. Another four tapes to go...

The drive is sweet and iMovie is even sweeter. It's going to take me forever to make a DVD out of all this footage, though.