25/$25 Dinner @ Brasa

Dinner here on Sunday was good, but not stellar. It was clear that the portion for the 25/$25 promotion are scaled-down from their regular menu - generally I don't mind, as long as I feel I'm still getting good value. At time, Brasa felt like they were pushing their luck...

Inside, Brasa is warmly decorated with booths along the outside wall, an open kitchen, and lots of dark colours. The overall ambience is fairly posh, but inviting and intimidating. For some reason our table had no table-cloth, which I thought was a bit tacky. Some tables are wood, and lookd OK without a cloth; ours wasn't wood.

Service generally was excellent. SLightly irritating was that they left 4 or 5 empty wine glasses on the table until quite late in the meal. I was even served a glass of wine which was put down right next to an empty glass for my setting... A waiter brought out appetizers and gave them to the wrong diner, which is not something you expect in a fancy place like this...

Food-wise, everything I tasted was good to very good. We were served really nice crunchy bread with very fruity olive oil to use for dipping. The 25/$25 menu works like this: you get to pick any starter and main course on the main menu that is marked (with a cute piggy icon). So the choice is very good compared to the average 25/$25 restaurant which usually offer 3 options for each course.

I had the Mediterranean mussels, and then poached black cod. The mussels were very small, and I think I had all of 8 in my bowl, but they were very tasty! Alyssum had a really interesting tomato and orange soup, followed by good wild mushroom risotto. (The presentation for her risotto was a bit sad). Others had the strip steak (which looked very good and was the most generous portion served at our table). One of us ordered the carpaccio for a starter, and finished it in 3 bites, again a victim of the tiny portions.

For dessert I was disappointed to see there were only 2 options for 25/$25 diners, both quite similar: a mascarpone cheesecake with pistacchio crust, or frozen lemon mousse. Waah! No cheese option. (There is an impressive-looking cheese selection when you walk into the restaurant - reserved for higher-paying guests, no doubt).

I had a great glass of white wine: billed on the wine list as Big House White 2003 Ca' Del Solo. I thought this might be Spanish, but Googling it now I see it actually Boony Doon Ca' del Solo from California. (2004 vintage info here). The 2003 was nice and refreshing, with a mineral tang, good acids and a firm but smooth finish. The wine list is very good, with a nice wine-by-the-glass selection, some interesting Spanish wines, and a "Cliff Notes" section with several wines around $30.

Overall, this was worth the money and I'd recommend trying Brasa during the 25/$25 promotion. Assuming the portions are normal-size when you pay full price, they're worth checking out outside the promotion too, although this is on the more expensive end ($15-ish for starters, $30 for mains, $10 for dessert)

"The greatest match ever played"

Normally, 300+ runs in a limited-overs cricket match is a decent score. A score in the high 300's would be unasssailable...

Before Sunday, no side had ever scored more than 400 in a one-day international, but Australia managed to hit 434 / 4. South Africa still managed to beat them, though! With one ball to spare, SA hit 438 / 9.

Unfortunately I didn't get to watch this match, although it looks like they'l be making a DVD of it. IOL have a nice summary of the match here.

Jeremy Clarkson on South African wine

You know him - he's on Top Gear. He's sometimes irrititating, but always entertaining.
Well, he was lucky enough to be invited to South Africa on Jaguar's tab.
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-2068235_1,00.html has his impressions on the country, the wine, and the Jaguar XK. (Read the article, it's fun)

Now Stormhoek has an open invitiation for him to visit their winery, so that they can show him some smaller stainless steel tanks and explain the difference between pressure guages and temperature guages.

Perhaps they can get the Stig to drive a fully-laden minibus around the Top Gear racetrack in return?

New music releases

There have been some interesting new CDs released in the past few weeks:

• William Orbit - "Hello Waveforms" - his first album in 5 years or so. After a few listenings, I quite like it but find it a little too spaced-out and mellow. It's follows in the same veign as "Pieces in a Modern Style", although there are some vocal tracks. I still prefer Strange Cargo 3 and Hinterland. Good news is that he is supposedly releasinganother album later this year.
• Beth Orton - "Comfort of Strangers". I love her voice, but it took some getting used to. No review of the album yet - I need to listen to it more.
• Bic Runga - "Birds". An incredible singer/songwriter from NZ. Instead of an Amazon link, the link on the left is to the HMV site in Aus, where you can order a special edition which includes 5 live tracks. Neil Finn plays piano on the live songs and plays on the album. I've just ordered this, so no review yet.

25/$25 Dinner @ Yarrow Bay Grill

Worth $25? Hells yeah!

Yum! This place is consistently excellent - this was our 2nd visit for dinner during the Twenty-Five for $25 promotion, and as before, everything was superb.

The restaurant has a great location, right on Lake Washington with a wonderful view. It's definitely a posh place, normally too expensive for me to visit except for special occasions. The Beach Cafe downstairs is a nice choice if you want a less formal meal. The service was very good, right from the moment we walked in. The maitre d' made welcomed us promptly, offered to take our coats and ushered us to our table. Our waitress was great - friendly and prompt, but not intrusive or trying too hard to be friendly.

(At one place that shall remain nameless the waitress thinks it's a good idea to grab your shoulder or praise you for each order as if you're in kindergarten and just ate all your peas!)

I had:

• Seven-spice calamari. Served with a scallion aioli and spicy soy dipping sauce.
• Sole fillets with broccolini, mashed potatoes and crispy fried onions.
• Cheese platter (Penazul, St. Andre, La Leyenda)

Alyssum had:

• Bibb lettuce salad
• Jalapeno and cilantro ravioli
• Meyer lemon meringue

All the food was delicious. My calamari was crispy on the outside, not oily, and tender on the inside. The aioli was minimally spread under the calamari, but added a nice rich flavour, and the dipping sauce was the perfect counterpoint. The sole fillets were nice and thick, firm and tasty. Excellent mash and broccolini, and the crunchy onions not only made a nice garnish, they tasted good too. The cheese plate was incredibly good - the three cheeses were at the perfect stage of ripeness, just the right temperature, and served with a yummy dried fruit preserve and almonds. My only small peeve was that the waitress didn't clue me in to which cheese was which.

For future referrence:

• Penazul: Spanish blue cheese. Buttery, sharp and tangy.
• St. Andre: French triple-creme soft cheese. Rich, mild, but more flavour than brie or camembert.
• La Leyenda: Firm Spanish sheep's mild cheese aged for one year (rubbed with oil and herbs) and then soaked in solera brandy for 4-5 days. Nutty and crumbly.

Alyssum was also very happy with her food. (She usually gets stuck with no real option at these dinners, being a vegeterian). Her salad was very simple, just really fresh good lettuce, good blue cheese crumbled on top, and a nice dressing. Still, getting something this simple right is an art. Her ravioli was very tasty - a nice creamy sauce and good flavour from the peppers without the heat. Her dessert was very good - meringue that was crunchy on the oustide but not overdone and powdery inside, nice lemon curd, and an interesting pastry with poppy seeds top. The cream was a little unneccessary, but that's a small niggle.

Tsotsi is a winner!

Woohoo! Tsotsi won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last night! (My previous post on the movie is here.) Congrats to the director, actors, crew and all involved!

Jurgen Fauth & Marcy Demansky make a valid point:

"The award is well-deserved, but we're disappointed with the Academy for seriously shortchanging the category.The nominated world films--Paradise Now, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, Joyeux Noel, Don't Tell, in addition to the winner--were listed with a notable lack of enthusiasm by Will Smith without so much as a clip of the films while their posters scrolled by in the background. Even animated shorts and sound editing got a montage--and Sophie Scholl's Julia Jentsch flew in from Berlin without getting shown in the broadcast once."

Anyway, I hope this means that Tsotsi will now be shown by a Seattle cinema or two.

Term-o-the-day: Conspicuous Consumption

Since I finished reading "The Undercover Economist", I've moved on to "A History Of The World In Six Glasses". So far it is excellent, and it introduced me to new term: conspicuous consumption. I love it! I perfectly describes so many things you see in modern life... From designed clothes, flashy cars, palatial homes, to snobby wine collectors and Whole Foods addicts. (Myself included)

If it's new to you too, Wikipedia has a good overview of the term here, and a related topic: Veblen goods.

Speaking of wine, I encountered term in the chapter of "Six Glasses" dealing with this drink. I didn't really appreciate how much ancient Greek and Roman attitudes to wine have influenced our modern views - very interesting!

Wine snobbery abounds nowadays... And since reading the two books above, I'm beginning to feel that I need to push back.

I've been on a"rare wine" mailing list for a while now, and have bought a fair amount from them. Their wine blurbs often make amusing reading, being laden with "wine speak", pretentious descriptions, insider references to other snooty wines (e.g. "the poor man’s Clos de Pape or a more rugged Vieux Donjon"), and frequent spelling mistakes (that ruin the snooty image they're trying to create!)

There are obviously many factors in determining wine prices, e.g. prices for California wines. Supply and demand, cost of production, etc. But it seems a large part is also the perceived snob value of the wine - People think: "If it is expensive, then it must be better, and it also will impress people more, so I'll buy it." In most cases I'm sure people wouldn't be able to tell their $100+ wine from a $15 or cheaper one.

Portland trip

We had a great long weekend in Portland, and I thought I'd share some of the places we discvovered so that you can check them out if you go.

5th Avenue Suites:
This was our 2nd stay here. Reasonable rates, a great location in downtown Portland within walking distance of many things below. Friendly service, very nice suites, they have free WiFi and daily wine reception (which I haven't tried yet...)

Teuscher:
Yummy Swiss chocolate truffles! We stumbled (we do a lot of that) upon a Teuscher store in San Francisco a few years ago and fell in love with their truffles, so now I make a point of visiting their stores whenever I can. I still like their champagne truffles best...

Portland Art Museum:
They currently have an exhibit of artwork and antiques from the house of Hesse (think the Hessian from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"). The exhibit is incredible - I think I enjoyed the everyday objects from their houses as much as the paintings, but this one is a stunner. (More pics here). Sadly we spent so much time on it that we didn't get to see the rest of the museum. We'll have to go again!

Plainfield's Mayur:
A good Indian restaurant with a nice veggie selection. The food was good, but not stellar, so if you're expecting something like Bukhara, you'll be disappointed. An insane wine list! (Would you drink a fine Bordeaux with Indian food, though?)

Caprial's Bistro:
A nice suburban bistro with a simple menu. I can recommend the house salad and seasonal fish (escarole). Other items were not as good (chickpea stew and the lemon chiffon & white chocolate dessert). Their cocktails are yummy (Alyssum had the Chocolate Orange Martini), and I discovered a superb new blonde ale from Bridgeport - Supris.

Mother's Bar & Bistro:
We went here last time we visited Portland and loved it. This time they are in the middle of a relocation/remodel, and were temporarily serving breakfast in a nearby restaurant. The atmoshpere was not as good, but the food was still good (maybe not quite as good as the previous time) and service was spotty. We'll give them a try again once they're in their new location.

Powells:
This is not a realy discovery - no trip to Portland is complete without a trip to Powell's.
I stumbled upon a cool series of manga books about the Buddha. Sadly they didn't have volume 1 (there are 8 volumes!), so I'm thinking of ordering vol 1 online and then seeing if it is as good as it seems.


Oregon Wines on Broadway:
Somehow this got deleted when I published this entry initially.
This is a charming little wine bar on Broadway (near Teuscher), small and cosy with a few comfy booths and the more outgoing patrons chatting at the bar. They specialize in Oregon Pinot Noirs and have a great selection. They also have 36 or so wines open and available by the glass or to taste (DIY flight of wine). I tried 3 pinots: 2004 A to Z, 2003 Cameron something-or-other, 2003 Carabella
The A to Z was the lightest and least impressive, and the Carabella was my favourite - almost chocolatey, smooth and powerful.

Tsotsi

Some lekker news! "Tsotsi", a South African movie, is one of the contenders for Best Foreign Film at this year's Academy Awards. See the Official website, Miramax website.

• Tsotsi is township slang for a thug or gangster. Tsotsies speak their own dialect of slang called Tsotsi Taal. Another distinct kind of slang called "gamtaal" comes from Cape Town, mainly used by coloureds* - here's a list of some of the words.
• The film is based on the novel by Athol Fugard, one of South Africa's most famous playwrights.
• I remember the writer-director, Gavin Hood, from his first big break on SABC TV in a soap-opera about rugby players called "The Game". Here's an older interview with him about his breakthrough from TV into film, and another about his short film "The Storekeeper".
• Gavin was also in what sounds like a dreadful Hallmark miniseries of "King Solomon's Mines" - Patrick Swayze played Allan Quartermain.
• NPR's Morning Edition interviews Gavin Hood and lead actor Presley Chweneyagae here.
• The movie should open in Seattle this Friday, but I'll have to make a date to see it next week some time.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the Oscars this year, partly because of this, but also because John Stewart is hosting!

* This term gets raised eyebrows from my American friends, but is still the term used inside South Africa, even by coloureds when describing themselves...

Random links and musings

Some random links and musing today...

• Volkswagen has a funny advertising campaign, Un-pimp my ride
• Thomas Jefferson's love affair with wine
• Acidity makes wine delicious
• Steph gives Salish Lodge a thrashing in her Valentine's Day review. To be fair, M+S are incredibly hard to please... I've been here only once and thought it was good, but overpriced. Their hot chocolate is absolutely incredible, though - think Starbuck's Chantico but better, and made at your table. We asked if we one could come just for dessert, but the waiter snootily said that luxury was only available to guests staying in the lodge. (Dumb attitude...)
  Have you been to Salish Lodge? What did you think?
• We're off to Portland tomorrow for a long weekend. This will be my second visit to the city, and I'm looking forward to visiting Powell's, the Japanese garden, and exploring downtown on foot. Perhaps I'll post pics next week :)

Cheese and wine reunited after brief hiatus

There was a minor upset in the wine bogging sphere last month when a university study supposedly concluded that red wine and cheese did not mix well. The same sentiment was echoed in Kevin Johnson's book "How to Enjoy Your Wine", in which (if my memory serves me well) that most reds don't pair with strong cheeses well, and a better pairing is a sweet white wine like a Sauternes.

Well, trusty Slate sets the record straight: Say Cheese! Turns out it goes fine with red wine.

when I spoke Tuesday with professor Hildegarde Heymann, who supervised the study, she told me that the New Scientist had misinterpreted the results, which will be published in full next month in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture (alas, not available on newsstands).

Great moments in online advertising

When I saw this ad fromTelkom I did a double-take...

Is that Einstein?!
Why does he look a frozen zombie?
Does Telkom think ghoulish physicists would inspire me to use them for my Internet access?

Perhaps it's the truth-in-advertising laws forcing them to reveal you will most likely be long-dead before they arrive to install your service... :P

Happy belated Valentine's Day

I hope you had a good one!

Mine was wonderful... We decided to stay home this year, and I made dinner for A. Here's the menu:

• steamed artichokes with jalapeno tartare sauce
• crusty french bread with soft blue cheese (duh, I forgot the name)
• fresh tagliatelle with Field Roast Mediterranean sauce (here's the recipe)
• chocolate petit fours and an apple tartlet shared for dessert
• accompanied by a 1/2 bottle of 2002 Tenuta Le Velette Il Raggio. (I added a tasting on CellarTracker too)

Tenuta Le Velette have a holiday house that looks really cute - perhaps I'll get the chance to visit the area and stay there one day?

More on television during the apartheid era

(It looks like this didn't get posted for some reason when I tried last week - trying again...)

Wikipedia rocks!
In a comment to this post, Joy asked why it was that American TV shows were shown in South Africa during the apartheid era... I didn't know, but it seems there are two main reasons:

1. The US actors and related unions/guilds did not declare a ban on their works being exported to South Africa. (If you find information to the contrary, let me know...) The British Equity actors union did enforce a ban. (British and American actors and musicians resolved not to perform in South Africa, although some infamous breaches of this occurred...)

In 1976, Equity in Britain decided to introduce a policy of refusing permission to sell programmes featuring its members to South African television. The Council of Equity also reaffirmed its policy to advise its members not to work in South Africa.

In October 1981, the board of the Associated Actors and Artists of America - an umbrella organisation of all major actors’ unions with a total membership of over 240,000 actors - took a unanimous decision that its members should not perform in South Africa.

2. From this wikipedia article:

The availability of US programming was partly the result of a co-operative venture with Universal Studios in 1980 where an episode of Knight Rider was filmed in the Namib desert in South West Africa (today Namibia), and local acting talent was involved in the filming. As a direct consequence, the SABC received the right to broadcast in American programming syndicated from Universal Studios/MCA, and through them purchased material from other studios.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Broadcasting_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_South_Africa

Interview with Bernard-Henri Levy

KUOW's Weekday had a great interview with the French philospher & author Bernard-Henri Levy (BHL). Listen to the MP3 podcast here. I really enjoyed listening to him...

And here's a review in the NYT of BHL's book, by Garrison Keillor (registration required or use cyberpunk/cyberpunk). Oh dear... Garrison doesn't have kind things to say! Here's a brief excerpt form his review:

...but there's nobody here whom you recognize. In more than 300 pages, nobody tells a joke. Nobody does much work. Nobody sits and eats and enjoys their food. You've lived all your life in America, never attended a megachurch or a brothel, don't own guns, are non-Amish, and it dawns on you that this is a book about the French. There's no reason for it to exist in English, except as evidence that travel need not be broadening and one should be wary of books with Tocqueville in the title.

Still, the interview was refreshing - lots of frank thoughts on the current outrage over the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, the French riots and hurricane Katrina, and the "New" Democrats...

In shaving, as in life, more is better

In America, people seem to often think more is better. Larger portions of food, bigger houses, bigger engines in their cars, and bigger cars. So, it is not that surprising to see the arms-race over razors:

The history of razors:
1850's: Invention of the safety razor
-1900s: Cut-throat razors common. A single blade, often wielded by a crusty old barber.
1903: Safety razor with disposable blades invented by King Camp Gillette. (I'm not making that name up). Introduction of mass-produced razors, and the business model of making money off of disposable blades.
1930s: Electric razor invented by Jacob Schick.
Later: Two-blade disposable razors. The war between Gillete and Schick begins, with new razor versions appearing almost every year.
Then: After years of advanced research, Gillette unveils the three-blade razor, Mach III. Blade cartridges reach stratospheric prices.
But: Schick fights back with four blades, the Quattro. Schick and Gillette offer razors with tiny motors to simulate the old crusty barber with shaky hands from the 19th century.
Prophetically: The Onion publishes an article predicting the next logical development: Gillette going to five blades!
Make it so: On Superbowl Sunday this year, Gillette finally unveiled their Fusion razor with five blades. Do I hear six blades from Schick? Dr. Seuss might have penned a line or two about that... "Slick Schick stick six ..."

NPR's Steve Inskeep bravely put the new 5-blade razor to the test.

Vin Diesel, and spilled milk...

Sorry, Julie. Not that Vin Diesel!

This article about turning wine into ethanol to run cars is interesting. Forget about having your car smell of McDonalds fries thanks to biodiesel, maybe the cars of the future will smell of brandy and witblits?
It's somehow sad that surplus wine gets repurposed in this way - imaging all the effort, love and caring that went into growing and picking the grapes, making and storing the wine ... and then, you're reduced to selling it off for pennies a gallon to make cheap fuel.

Still, I guess that is a lot better than what sometimes happens to surplus food. I remember hearing stories about surplus milk in SA being poured out onto the ground. I'm not sure why they couldn't just sell it for less, or make some cheese with it, but then I'm not a dairy farmer... It turns out the Dairy Control Board (a national body to control the price and distribution of dairy products) had something to do with it...

South Africa has also witnessed the destruction of surplus fruit and milk at the behest of control boards in order to keep up prices. Information supplied by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Uys, in Parliament during the 1968 session revealed that in the four months from 10 October 1967 to 11 February 1968 the Milk Board had issued instructions for some 2,107,000 gallons of skimmed milk to be thrown away in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Klerksdorp, and Bloemfontein. The previous
session, the Minister had stated that more than 500,000 gallons of skimmed milk had been thrown away in Johannesburg and Pretoria between 20 December 1966 and 28 February 1967, on the instructions of the Milk Board. The reason given was 'overproduction'.

More info here (logon required), or cached page here.

What did you watch growing up?

Often conversation will turn to TV shows that people remember from their childhood. Most of my American friends watched Sesame Street, which for some reason never made it to South Africa. We got to see some of the Muppet movies in the cinemas, but I think the sanctions during the apartheid era kept Sesame Street off our TV screens.

Despite sanctions, we had quite a few American TV shows while I was growing up (British TV shows were almost non-existent though...) So, I remember watching shows like Battlestar Galactica, Space: 1999, Star Trek, Buck Rogers, The A-Team, Airwolf, MacGuyver... Often shows would be dubbed into Afrikaans, especially German shows like Derrick - I guess lip-synching to German was easier. In the late 80's-early 90's they started simulcasting the original English soundtrack on the radio, so you could watch the show in its original language (woohoo!)

Some of the most memorable shows from my childhood are the kids TV shows I watched from the age of 4 or 5. Some were locally-produced children's shows that nobody outside of South Africa probably ever saw, others were imported and dubbed. Here's a brief list, with some of the theme tunes (click on the to hear them)...


Barbapapas (France):
This was one of my favourite shows when I was really young. The main characters are a rubbery family that look a lot like bowling pins, and I ended up getting some as toys.

Noddy (UK) :
Based on the Enid Blyton books. (I also read her "Famous Five" books as a kid).

Haas Das se Nuuskas (South Africa) :
I think I watched this around the 2nd and 3rd grade. Here's an article on the creator, who also created other South African childrens' TV shows, such as...

Wielie Walie (South Africa) :
The most insidious theme tune! The title sequence had a grinning animated monkey atop a rolling a barrel as it rolled down a jungle path. The Afrikaans show was basically a variety show with adult hosts, and puppet animals that all lived in a house together. A talking crow (Karel?) and "sea monster" (Sarel) were the main puppets - the crow would sing and play a small guitar, and the sea-monster would provide the comedy (mainly by being stupid). There was also a talking worm, Bennie Boekwurm (bookworm), who would only appear after being summoned by singing flowers. He'd then pop out of the ground, adjust his horn-rimmed specs, and read a story. A gang of talking socks in a dresser also made regular appearances. Great fun!


Liewe Heksie (South Africa) :
("Dear Witch") A great Afrikaans show based on the books by Verna Vels. The characters were all puppets filmed against a black background, and were surprisingly expressive. (Somehow they would get Liewe Heksie's mouth to dimple at the corners when she smiled). The title character is a young witch that actually doesn't know how to do magic. She somehow always managed to save the day, despite bumbling her way through each adventure.

Maya the Bee (Japan):
I saw this dubbed into Afrikaans... I was surprised to see this was actually made in Japan - I could have sworn it was a from Germany or France. This was one of my favourite early animated shows, featuring a young female bee and her insect friends.
More info here.

Heidi (Japan) :
Again, I saw this dubbed into Afrikaans. The theme tune is in German, but the show is Japanese. Based on the books by Johanna Spyri. I had a Heidi LP as a young kid, probably my first record!


Take Hart (UK):
This was an incredible art show for kids. Tony Hart was a great host and an inspired me to draw and paint, plus he dedicated a few minutes of each show to show a gallery of artwork submitted by his young viewers. His show also featured a claymation animation segment, with a little guy called Morph. Morph was created by Aardman, and Nick Park's first job for Aardman was on the Morph production line. (More here)

Links:
List of lots of SA shows
When local was lekker on SA TV
Early SABC TV nostlagia site

How to get rich, quick!

The other day while browsing in a bookstore, I noticed a new book by Dave Barry: "Dave Barry's Money $ecrets". I found myself laughing out loud and eagerly flipping through the book reading his pithy take on various financial topics.

You can imagine my pleasure when I heard him on KUOW's Weekday yesterday morning, talking about his new book and being generally irreverent. You can listen to a podcast of the show by going here. (He kindly summarises Donald Trump's "How to Get Rich" so you don't need to read it.)

Speaking of financial books, I have "The Undercover Economist" waiting for me at the library. It sounds like it's in the same vein as "Freakonomics", so it should be good.

Making Scents of Wine

If you have a few hundred $$ laying around, and want to train your nose to pick up wine smells, http://www.makescentsofwine.com/ is for you! The list of aromas is impressive...
Or, if you just want to learn how to pick out spoilt wine, they have a 12-pack of "wine fault" aromas, including one called "horse", and another called "glue". (Next time you're caught huffing glue, just say you're developing your sommelier skills!)

Parody of "The DaVinci Code"

I just noticed that a South African author (Tom Eaton) has written a parody of Dan Brown's wildly popular book:
http://www.kalahari.net/bk/product.asp?sku=28346218&showlargeimage=1&toolbar=mweb
Here's an excerpt. It sounds like fun, but I'll have to read Brown's book first to truly appreciate it. (Or I could maybe cheat and just watch the movie.)

I wonder if he's any relation to my old English teacher?

I'm hung up!

Aargh!! It's stuck in my head! From a review on Amazon:

"Hung Up" starts off with samples from ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" to jump full fledge into a track that you simply will not be able to sit still through.

God damn, that sample is waaay too catchy! And it's disco! Someone help me!

On an unrelated musical note, I placed an advance order for the new William Orbit CD (first new one in 5 years!), and noticed the new Beth Orton CD is coming out around the same time, so I took a (small) risk and ordered it too. Plus, the new Lemon Jelly (which I've already enjoyed on Hayoo! Music) The final track on Lemon Jelly's new CD features William Shatner, so you know it's good. (Check out Shatner's album "Has Been")

Blind wine tasting

(updated 1/23 9:42pm - Added the Firesteed Pinot Noir I forgot!)

We had a really fun blind wine tasting on Saturday. Alyssum chose 4 red wines from around the world, and with Raymond's help, wrapped them and re-branded them Mars, Venus, Neptune, Mercury and Pluto.

It was really interesting trying to detect such basic things as grape variety without any extra information to go on. Most of the time I was wrong - guessing that a Cabernet Sauvignon was in fact a merlot, or that a Shiraz was a Cabernet Sauvignon. Next time, I'll review this nice guide to wine varieties and wine tasting how-to. Also see this more complete guide to varieties.

Surprisingly, the tastiest wines were not always from the most lauded winery. The wines and some brief notes:

2004 Rosemount Shiraz Diamond Label, S. Australia:
The best wine of the night for me. I thought this was a California or Washington Merlot - it's definitely more fruity than most Cab Sauv's from the northern hemishpere. A great nose with fruit and spice mixing with some alcohol - you know this is a powerful wine before tasting it. It has a nice full-bodied, velvety feel in your mouth, with red fruit and spice (pepper), a good middle attack of tannins that are very soft and linger for great 30 second or so long finish. A great wine to savour on its own, or to drink with a robust meal of grilled meat or with bread & cheese.

Reading up on this wine on their great website, it sounds like the growing condition in 2004 were not as good as 2002/3, so if you find one of those vintages, definitely try them instead. (it sounds like they usually get more raspberry and fruit in a good year).
Mark's score: 92%

2002 Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon, California:
A surprise for me - I thought I'd be able to recognize "3 Buck Chuck" pretty easily. This one was quite impressive - maybe not as nuanced and powerful as a "great" wine, but at the price it was damn nice. A nice fruity nose with berries and oak, medium-full-bodied, sweet cherry/cassis and soft tannins mixed with some spice. A nice lingering finish.
Mark's score: 89%

2002? Goats Do Roam, W. Cape, South Africa:
Wooho! A South African wine! OK... so maybe that's not so exciting to you! :)
I've actually been to the winery - Fairview - where this comes from. The name is a fun reference to the goats that are raised on the farm to make cheese :

One afternoon, at harvest time, my mischievous son Jason and his friend Justin let the goats out of thier tower and sent them for a walkabout amongst the vines. As in the legend of the Yemeni goat herder, whose roaming flock firs discovered the joys of coffee beands, our goats picked out th best and tastiest fruit. Their choice which includes Pinotage, Shiraz, Cinsault, Grenache and Carignan, serves as our inspritation for this wine.

The "goat towers" are really cute: picture a narrow tall white tower with a spiral staircase on the outside. Great for giving the goats a chance to practice their mountaineering skills, and they have little rooms inside to hang out in when it's nasty outside.

Anyway, back to the wine: This is definitely more funk than the others - the smell is a little musty and reminds me of sweaty feet a little. The taste is medium bodied, fruity and quite spicy (green pepper) with a finish that fades in a few seconds. Not much oak, this is a straightforward expression of the grapes (a blend of many red varieties including South Africa's own Pinotage). The taste is quite unusual, so this stands out a bit from the cheap red blends that try to be smooth and innocuous. It's probably best with food like pasta or pizza.
Mark's score: 80%

2003 Christian Moueix Merlot, Bordeaux:
This is the 2nd label wine from the famous Chateau Petrus estate, and is highly reviewed online. e.g.:

Christian Moueix makes the most expensive red Bordeaux on the planet, Chateau Petrus, which sells for $1000 a bottle in great vintages (1989, 1990 and 1995) and just slightly less in ordinary years. He also makes Christian Mouiex Merlot for about $9 a bottle, and it's great every year. During the tremendous vintages, it's an even better bargain. The price disparity is so great, that it must be a 50th label instead of a second or third. Mouiex's talent and experience making the $1000 wine spill over into the $9 wine, to everyone's delight. It's available literally everywhere around town. [link]

I found it disappointing: not much on the nose, and a thin, unexciting taste with rather harsh tannins. Very dry and atringent. This is definitely not like the fruit-forward merlots from the southern hemisphere, or even the USA. Perhaps this is what "old world" merlot is meant to taste like, but I didn't enjoy it. FYI - Christian Moueix also owns Dominus in California. More info here.
Mark's score: 75%

2003 Firesteed Pinot Noir, Oregon:
This was the final wine, and my notes are a bit sparse. The colour was light red, translucent. The nose showed oak, smoke and light red fruit (raspberries), with a "funky" edge. On the tongue it felt light and the acids and tannins emerged quickly, leaving a harsh, hard short finish. Not much fruit on the palate. Light and fresh, but a little too acidic and harsh for my liking.
Mark's score: 72%

PS: Cabernet and Cabernet Sauvignon are not regions in France. Cabernet is not a grape variety either - it's just a populare shortening of Cabernet Sauvignon (the most widely-planted red grape). Cabernet Franc is another famous .Correct me if I'm wrong :)

Tweaked layout

As you may have noticed, I've tweaked the layout of my blog a little. I noticed that Internet Explorer was having problems rendering the front page at certain widths, which caused the entries to be shoved down to below the right-hand "menu". So, I've switched back to the default fixed-width template, and tweaked some old posts to fit.

I should really play with CSS some more and try to understand how to get a variable-width layout that works, but that will have to wait a while...

Oregon's bewpubs

The NYT has a story on Oregon's bewpubs, focusing on Portland. I've been through Portland a few times on my way to central Oregon, and also visited "properly" once. I really enjoyed my visit - the city feel more "European" than Seattle, and the downtown area is fun to explore on foot. Plus, you have an Powell's Books - worth a visit in itself.

Oregon has an interesting beer rule: You can bring a covered container to the pub, get some beer, and enjoy it at home... The law says:

471.253. (1) A brewery-public house license shall allow thelicensee:
(a) To manufacture annually on the licensed premises, store,transport, sell to wholesale malt beverage and wine licensees ofthe commission and export { - no more than 200,000 barrelsof - } malt beverages, as defined in ORS 473.010;
(b) To sell malt beverages manufactured on or off the licensedpremises at retail for consumption on or off the premises;
(c) To sell malt beverages in brewery-sealed packages at retaildirectly to the consumer for consumption off the premises;
(d) To sell on the licensed premises at retail malt beveragesmanufactured on or off the licensed premises in unpasteurized orpasteurized form directly to the consumer for consumption off thepremises, delivery of which may be made in a securely covered container supplied by the consumer;

Macaroni and Cheese

Slate has a fun article titled "Crusty Macaroni and Cheese" - What's wrong with the New York Times' weirdly popular recipe.

The Slate story is a follow-on to this story in the NYT, which includes a recipe for macaroni and cheese that doesn't use any bechamel. It sounds pretty disgusting - just pasta and cheese, with a little milk. It reminds me a bit of the overly-oily dish I had at Purple Cafe a while back...

My mom's recipe was pretty traditional: a cheese sauce made using bechame, some nutmeg, cayenne pepper and strong mustard powder (I think?), with good aged cheddar. I haven't made any myself for ages, perhaps this weekend I'll be evil... (Snowshoeing on Saturday will be a good way to burn off the calories!)

Blind Eating

From Morning Edition:

Dining by candlelight may be romantic, but it's tastier when there's no light at all. That's what one one French restaurateur, Edouard de Broglie, belives. He will open Dans Le Noir, or "In the Dark," in London, similar to his other light-free restaurant in Paris. His theory is that food is best savored in a kind of blind tasting, using the taste buds only. But food is not always recognized; customers are known to confuse, say, veal with tuna.

Hmm... I could see how removing the visual stimulus would encourage your brain to focus more on the taste, smell and texture of what you're eating, but is the benfit worth the risks? Imaging eating your napkin, or forking yourself in the eye. How do you know when you're done eating? (Do you shove your fingers in the plate and rummage around?)

Besides, I think a large part of the joy of good food is visual, somehow the best meal tastes even better and is more memorable if it beautifully presented. I'll be sticking with normal levels of ambient lighting for now, thank you.



For now, I'll stick withto romantic candle-lit dinners instead of pitch darkness.

Stormhoek Wine

I always like reading about South African wines doing well abroad, so I was pleased to recently stumble upon a new South African winery's blog : Stormhoek Wine
(Their name can be translated as "Storm Corner". They seem to be near Wellington, which is very close to where my mom lives in the Western Cape...)

What makes them interesting is:

• They're all about freshness. Unoaked, fresh, crisp whites are their focus. (They also make a Sangiovese Merlot though). I like this snippet from their website:

new zealand has the best tech for making white wine. but south africa has better
grapes. so obviously the "hacker" thing to do was to move the tech over to south
africa and see what happens. voila! stormhoek. "freshness matters."

• This blog entry describes their freshness philosphy and the science behind it. Now I know what "reductively made wine" is...
• They use screwcaps (exclusively it seems). This is part of their focus on freshness - reducing the oxidation and risk of wine spoiling from contaminants in the cork.
  Speaking of screwtops, the nicest one I've seen yet is from Aussie: The Zork. You get the satisfying "pop" of a cork, and can easily re-seal your bottle.
• They blog actively. They have tried to use the "blogosphere" to do some disruptive marketing of their wines. A nice example: they sent a few hundred bottles of wine as free gifts to bloggers around the world, without any strings attached. Many of the bloggers posted reviews of the wine, which ended up doubling their sales in less than a year! I say kudos to them!
• So far, they seem to be doing very well in the UK.

I haven't seen their stuff on sale in the US, but maybe Garagiste or Esquin will find a US importer?

Steerpike: Then and now

Here is a picture of Steerpike as a kitten, shortly after I got him in 2002. He had just had his first bath, and was feeling a little the worse for wear. (Hence the hiding in a wastepaper basket...)

And one from a few weeks ago. He's definitely grown, but he still is damned cute and behaves like a hooligan! :)

Less is more: The short cappuccino

Raymond forwarded me a link to this excellent article in Slate about Starbuck's elusive "short" cappuccino. It reminds me of this other story I read a few days ago in Slate, which also mentioned the sensitive pricing scheme needed to keep customers happy: make a lot of profit from most by selling them larger drinks, but offer cheaper and smaller drinks to people that are "cost conscious".

What about taste conscious customers? I guess you would skip Starbucks altogether then, and go to one of the better alternatives for coffee in Seattle: Tully's, Vivace, Caffe Apassionato, Caffe Ladro, ...

First MS patch of the year is out

Make sure you install MS06-001 on your Windows machines. (Go to Microsoft Update or Windows Update and install the recommended patches, or get it directly here.) More regularly-sheduled patches come out on Tuesday.

It's always hectic when a 0-day exploit is released (that means there is a public exploit out there without a fix from Microsoft). Lots of interesting stuff happened with this one, but what struck me was the release of an "unofficial" patch for the issue. (I just used the recommeded mitigation and unregistered shdocvw.dll on my machines. That blocks the web and image-in-email attack vectors). I was surprised to see how many security companies and media outlets pushed the unofficial patch, despite the low level of testing and risk that many systems or applications could be broken.

I wonder if we'll start seeing unofficial patches for all 0-day critical exploits? Maybe Microsoft could release "alpha" (untested) patches for people to use at their own risk? At least then they would be signed and you could validate that you're not installing malware hidden as a patch.

Mr Eaton's Poem

It's weird how luck or fate work sometimes. In this case, someone from my distant past in another country popped up in a Half-Price Books store in Redmond, WA a year or so ago.

I had a really great English teacher in high school, by the name of Mr. Eaton. (He didn't have a first name then, all teachers were simple Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so). I had Mr. Eaton from my first day in standard 6 (grade 8), and if I remember correctly, I had him all the way through Matric (grade 12). If I remember right, he was the head of the English department, and taught the "advanced" higher-grade English class for most grades. (A bit of shameless bragging there...)

Mr. Eaton was a real character - the sort of teacher that Molesworth would have vilified and drawn rather unflattering pictures of. (The irony is that Mr. Eaton introduced me to Molesworth!) Mr. Eaton would probably have come out as a micture of him and him. In real life he was an imposing 6 1/2 foot-plus tall man, with a beak-like nose and fierce eyes. He could look at the most cocky, troublesome kid and they'd instantly shut up and behave. (At least, in the 8th grade that was true... By the 10th grade he would resort to more vocal measures, and could strip the paint off a wall at 50 paces.) He would add to his severe countenance by shaving his head with a numer-1 or number-2 clipper once a year, so he looked like an escaped criminal or mental patient for a few weeks of each year. I think I heard that he lost a bet at some point, and the head-shaving were the terms he kept to from then on...

All this makes him sound like a terrible demon that you lived in fear of. While it's true he was intimidating and demanded respect and the best behaviour, he really loved English and the literature we studied. He was one of the few teachers in my school that was so passionate about their subject that you became infected by their passion. He was excited by the poems we studied. His booming bass made anything he read aloud come alive. He was also quirky and had wide-ranging tastes: as reward for good behaviour he would read us excerpts from the Molesworth books, or read short-stories outside our normal setwork. (He read us The Ruum by Arthur Porges, and I still remember it vividly.)

All told, he was one of the best teachers I've ever had. Thanks to him I enjoy Shakespeare. (OK, Maybe Will has something to do with that too...)

Anyway, that was then. How does the story come back to Redmond, WA in 2004?
Well, I was browsing the used poetry books in Half-Price Books when I stumbled upon a Penguin collection of South African poetry. The book was old, published in 1968, and such a rare find that I bought it without much thought. Leafing through the book later, I noticed a poem by an Anthony Eaton. "Hmm.... I wonder if that's the same Anthony Eaton that taught me?", I thought. (Yes, I had finally discovered his first name after a few years at school!)
Sure enough, the brief biography at the back of the book described him as having studied at U.C.T. and working as an educator in Cape Town.

It was amazing to think that of the many people it could have landed up with, this book somehow made its way to me, and rekindled all these memories!

The joys of posting

So, a quick note on why I've been quiet for so long (and why suddenly there are posts a-flowing).
The posting woes were not over, it seems. For some reason, Blogger is still unable to re-publish my entire blog - I can post new entries, but changing the template requires you to re-publish everything, and this then dies after 20-30% is copied up to my server.

The problem seems to be my web host, since normal FTP operations from IE, ftp.exe or other client, get dropped after a few operations. So...
Short-term solution: manually re-post all entries, and don't muck with the temlate for now.
Long-term solution: move my domain to a new hosting company. (It looks like Yahoo! may win - they're cheap, offer lots o' storage and bandwidth, and now have Moveable Type (blogging software) as an option.

Does anyone have any tips on how to export my Blogger postings and upload them easily to Movable Type if I choose to go that route?

Listening to...

Jonathan reminded me about the group The Postal Service - they have some really good songs on their album Give Up. You can download a free mp3 copy of the song Such Great Heights from their website.

They will see us waving from such great heights
"Come down now," they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
"Come down now," but we'll stay

Ironically, I heard this song a while back on the Garden State soundtrack, but it was a cover performed by Iron and Wine. I mistakenly though that Iron and Wine wrote the song, and that Postal Service later covered it - it's the other way around. I recommend hearing both versions - the lyrics are more evident in the Iron and Wine version, but the beat on the original is infectious.

So, Postal Service are currently on rotation in my Yahoo! Music playlist. I also discovered a similar band that I've been enjoying today: Grandaddy.

PS: The Google music search thingy rocks! It reminds me of the good days of CDNow.com, when you get artist discographies and bios easily. After Amazon bought CDNow, the info was hidden in the ads and clutter of Amazon's pages...

Viking Marching Band

At Keshav & Carrie's New Year's Eve party, Ramsey suggested we check out this video (alternate link and more info here)
Warning: weird music and animation, SFW though...

In honour of the movie, we came up with this cocktail that evening:

The Viking Marching Band
1 Mandarin orange, juiced (in South Africa, you'd use a naartjie)
1 shot of vodka (you know you want the good stuff...)
1/2 shot rum (spiced dark rum is best)
splash of grenadine syrup (less really is more in this case)
Pomegranate juice (4 oz / 125 ml or so)

Directions:
Mix everything in a shaker with ice, and shake well. Pour into a martini glass.

These were really popular... hic!

Seasonal ales

There are many seasonal brews that come around each winter, and some specially made for Christmas, so I thought I'd recommend some of the better ones I've tried this year.

Belgium makes an astounding number of Christmas beers, mostly double or trippel ales that are wonderfully rich and warming. Bottleworks in Seattle have a great selection, and when I stopped by a few weeks ago, the had some 1-year old Corsendonk Christmas Ale. I tried it last night, and really enjoyed it! It's mellow, smooth, a little nutty and spicy and not too fizzy. It reminded me a little of the Rogue Hazelnut brown ale, so try that one too if you like the Corsendonk...
Some of the newer Belgian beers can be really fizzy, I think the aging makes a big difference... I tried an Orval a few days previous and it was disappointingly fizzy.

Speaking of Bottleworks, they have recently opened a Belgian-style bar/cafe in Fremont, called Brouwer's, and I'm dying to try it. Perhaps there will be some moules et frites in my Christmas long-weekend!

Being a Seattle-ite, I can't write about beer and leave out the great Northwest microbrews that come out this time of year. Favourites from past years are the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, Redhook Brewery Winter Hook Ale and the Bridgeport Ebenezer Ale. I've recently tried the Pyramid Brewery Snow Cap Ale, but this was too bitter and hoppy for my tastes, and not very fruity or rich, so it isn't high on my list of winter ales.

Update: 1/3/2006
A quick note on some other beers I've tried in the past week or so.

A Pacific NW one that's very yummy is the Widmer Snow Plow. Very smooth and malty, nice and warming. It's sort of like Guiness-lite. (Not as bitter and charred)

Another great Belgian beer (not seasonal, though) was a bottle of Kwak . Something about the name appeals to my juvenile sense of humour. (Which is still intact despite my great age...)

I can re-publish!

As if by magic! No errors!
I wonder if it's a coincidence that I contacted Blogger support a day or two ago? I never heard back from them, but everything seems happy now.

Well, with that fixed, I'd better not waste time. Back to the interesting stuff! Thanksgiving pics and snow pics to come this weekend!

Publishing woes...

I'm still hitting the "Broken Pipe" error when trying to re-publish my blog - even after moving the website to a new server with plenty of space. I'm beginning to suspect that Blogger is to blame. It looks like I am able to post new entries fine, but re-publish the entire blog fails. It would be nice if they gave you more diagnostics information...

Time to look into hosting my own blogging server?

Pfft! Another test

Blogger is lame and won't let me publish my blog after I change my template, so I have to publish an entry instead...

Freaky pizza recipe

Apparently, Americans think you're weird if you put tuna on your pizza! (My girlfriend had previously only seen this in Germany, and teases me whenever I try to make tuna pizza at home).

Last night I tried something new, and it turned out relaly well, so here's a quick recipe.
Ingredients:

• Pizza dough (make your own, or buy some ready-made dough, e.g. at Trader Joe's)
• Trader Joe's Indian Relish
• 1 cup of shredded cheese (I used a Spanish sheep/cow's milk cheese from Trader Joe's)
• 1 Small can of tuna (in water), drained
• 1 zucchini, sliced into 1-2mm thick slices
• 1/4 red onion, sliced
• Olive oil
• Salt & pepper to season

Roll out the dough and put it on a baking sheet or pizza stone. Spread the relish on the dough (not too much, it should just cover the dough, but you don't need a thick layer everywhere). Spread the tuna over the pizza, cover with shredded cheese, then the zucchini and onion. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Bake in a 425F oven for 15 minutes or until the pizza is slightly brown around the edges and the cheese is bubbly.

The Indian relish gives this a nice spicy, fruity tang. You could substitute a good fruit chutney instead (like Mrs. Balls Chutney from South Africa)

"I got the Blue Death"

Another quick plumber story befor I forget... (See "The week from Hell" for the setup to this)

When the plumber came out last Wednesday (after the flooding and general mayhem on Tuesday), he complained about having "the blue death" while on his phone in the parking lot. I thought I had mis-heard and perhaps there was an illness in his family...
Later it turned out his phone had gotten wet the previous day, and his screen was now on the fritz and only showed an eerie blue glow.

He probably was trying to say "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD) - referring to the bugcheck (kernel crash) screen Windows is infamous for. I think "Blue Death" sounds far better, though.

I wonder what colour the bugcheck screen in Vista is?

Time for a "Sea change"?

Bill Gates' memo to senior execs at Microsoft was leaked to the press this week. In it he calls for a "sea change" within the company - which made me wonder what the origin of that phrase is?

World Wide Words to the rescue! (More at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sea1.htm)
The phrase is a quotation from Shakespeare. It comes from Ariel’s wonderfully evocative song in The Tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Michael Quinion runs World Wide Words and has a brilliant weekly newsletter on words and language, plus several books.

Sony DRM fun

If you read Slashdot, you've no doubt seen this, but if not... Mark Russinovich's blog aired some of Sony's dirty laundry last week, when he outlined how one of their copy-protected CD's installs a kernel-mode rootkit on your machine without your knowledge.

His initial analysis is really interesting, as is his analysis of the "patch" and phone-home behaviour of the rootkit, and his follow-up to the counter-claims from the software's developers.
The ability to effect change by complaining on your personal blog depends on havign an audience, and having credibility. It's cool to see the effect these postings have had - Sony are scrambling to fix this and the press coverage means more people will be aware of CD copy-protection and copy-protection in general.

Update - Nov 9th: The next round from on Mark's blog is here, in which he slices and dices the uninstall process that SonyBMG makes you jump through.

Update - Nov 14th: Sony will no longer manufacture any CDs using this DRM technology, and is re-evaluating their DRM initiative. Microsoft's Anti-Spyware tool will include a signature to recognize the rootkit and allow it to be removed.

The Week from Hell

Last week was a doozy! (If you're South African you may think "doozy" think that has something to do with the Dusi Canoe Marathon, but they just sound the same).

I was going to go into the gory details with a long post last week, but I think a bulleted list is better. It's still long and fairly gory - sorry. Here goes:
Tuesday:

• Plumber finally came to install new water heater. Price had already jumped from $1000 initial quote (on the phone) to $2500 (after adding all the stuff required to bring it "to code").
• Plumber did lots of soldering (pronounced "saw-der-ing" in the US) and found out that blowtorch + fire sprinkler head = BOOM!
• Fire sprinkler heads dump a LOT of water when they go BOOM! Plus, the fire alarm sounds and you have to call 911 to get the Fire Department out to shut off the sprinkler.
• Fire Department came out, were very friendly, and shut off the alarm. They actually didn't do much else - the plumber shut off the fire sprinkler and called in water damage restoration folks.
• New water heater could now be installed in the soggy tranquility following the Fire Department's departure. Only one problem- it's too big to fit in the "closet" in my condo. (By about 2 mm)
• Plumber: "It's not going to fit. I can't do it... I'll have to call the office... They ordered the wrong heater..."
  Me: "Are there any smaller hydronic water heaters that we could try?"
  Plumber: "Nope, they are all bigger now thanks to the new energy-efficient burners. You won't find a smaller one." (Later proven to be BS when I saw my downstairs neighbour's unit - but then they have a larger closet and easier plumbing too, so they definitely got lucky!)
• Me: "How about you rotate it this way a little so the side pipes don't get stuck on the wall?"
  Plumber: "Nah, that won't work... Never... It's the laws of physics" (This was favourite quote of his - apparently heat rising is also a law of phsyics!)
  Me: "Let's try"
  
• Plumbing proceeds without too much more drama. The fire sprinkler guy comes out to put a new sprinkler head on (after all the soldering is done), and re-pressurizes the system. The water damage restoration folks come out and put fans a dehumidifiers in my unit, and the two below me... Water damage is not too bad - and we're due to get new carpets soon anyway :)
• Still waiting to hear from the Lowe's carpeting contractor.
• End of Tuesday...

Wednesday:

• Spent the night in a jet-engine turbine - at least that's what the fans sounded like.
• I notice a leak from one of the pipes connected to the water heater - way up next to the ceiling and the fire sprinkler head that went BOOM the previous day. Also, my hydronic heating system makes a chunka-chunka-chunka noise when it's turned on - the pump is not happy. Call the plumber - he can come out around lunch time... I head in to work, leave early, meet the plumber, and realize I don't want him to solder and risk the fire sprinkler going off again, so I call the fire sprinkler guy. He can come on Thursday at 2pm. So, we re-schedule for then.
• Still waiting to hear from the Lowe's carpeting contractor.

Thursday:

• Another night in the jet turbine. Steerpike is starting to get brave and will actually walk into the lounge within a few feet of one of the fans, but Thandi is still shell-shocked and hides in the bedroom.
• Plumber comes out at 2pm. Fire-sprinkler guy comes out and shuts off the fire sprinkler system's water. He wraps the sprinkler head in a wet rag (if only we'd thought of that on Tuesday!) Plumber does some soldering, cuts out a flow check valve, solders in some pipe so now my water heater looks a bit like a Frankenheater.
• Everything gets re-connected. All seems well!
• We finally get ahold of the carpeting contractor - they can come out on Saturday. In the meantime our old carpet and floor is drying out slowly. (The carpet is dry already, but as we'll see on Saturday, the sub-floor is still damp)

Friday:

• Alyssum's car won't start, so I need to get up WAY TOO EARLY and give her a ride to work. (Getting up at 6:30am is probably even earlier than sparrow-fart...)
• To prepare for Saturday's carpeting fun, we so a few more runs down to our storage unit to get rid of furniture we won't need for the next week or two.
• I check my bank accounts online around midnight, and notice my credit card is strangely under water... A theme of the week, maybe? Some skelm (crook) in South Africa has helped themselves to $4500 from an ATM using a copy of my credit card! Technically, you wonder how that works... Did they get my credit card info from an online database (hacked a web merchant?), and then make a card? How did they get the PIN? Are they able to program their own?
  Frantic attempts to call my bank prove fruitless - their 24-hour support number is really a 10-hour support number with 14-hour voicemail. Still, their website lets me go "WTF?!" for each unauthorized charge.

Saturday:

• Call the bank in the morning, explaing the credit card fraud. They cancel my card and let me know there are some more pending charges to watch out for. Later VISA call me and run through the same thing. This will be my 2nd new card due to fraud this year. All this re-affirms by view that the credit card system is fundamentally broken and I'm amazed VISA and the other companies haven't moved to a more secure system yet. "Verified by Visa" sounds good, but no-one is using it yet - how about forcing all online vendors to use it? How about fixing in-store credit purchases so that the clerk can't make a copy of your card number and then party on it?
• Carpeting went smoothly, and while we had to move everything left in the condo 3 times (once into the lounge, then into the bedrooms, then back), we had stripped out enough stuff that it was not too bad.

Mark surely-nothing-more-can-go-wrong?

South African Wine mega-tasting

From Spittoon, "The biggest South African tasting in the UK ever I believe."
Some nice tastign notes from wines I'm not familiar with...
An Eben Sadie wine is one of them: The Sadie Family Palladius, 2004. I'd never heard of him before coming to the US and only did so by way of Garagiste, but am looking forward to tasting some of his wines in the coming months.
Boutique wines seem to be the next big thing in SA?

Bought a house!

Yes, A and I made an offer last Friday and it was accepted! We're almost 7 days into the process after our offer was accepted last Staurday!

• The house is really nice, still! I was wondering if I'd get cold feet when we went during the house inspection.
• Speaking of the inspection, it went fairly well. The roof needs replacing, but we pretty much knew that. The siding on the southern side needs paining this year and some boards need replacing next year.
• The furnace needs a service
• The water heater is old (20 years old!) It's a miracle it hasn't died yet!

Now there's no excuse for not getting the condo ready for sale. So, we've rented storage and spent a busy Tuesday night moving many large and heavy things into storage. This weekend will be spent moving more stuff, and doing some work on the condo.

Listening to...

I noticed some intersting new albums came out on Yahoo! Music today:

• The Dandy Warhols "Odditorium or Warlords of Mars"
• David Gray "Life In Slow Motion"
• Sigur Ros "Takk..."
• Tracy Chapman "Where You Live"
• Paul McCartney "Chaos & Creation In The Backyard"

So far, I've listened to some of "Chaos..." and like most of it. He definitely knows how to write pop! I love "Takk..." - I need to explore more of their albums.

Other recent discoveries of note are Michael Penn (brother of Sean Penn), who does great pop/rock in the vein of Neil Finn/Finn Brothers.
Eels are also incredible, with quite a range of style and emotion over their albums. Their new album "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations" was reviewed in NPR and got me hooked.

Dinner @ 8: Purple Cafe, Kirkland

A group of 7 went to the Purple Cafe in Kirkland last night for dinner. They're part of the Dinner at 8 promotion running in September. The place was packed (even more than usual) but we had a reservation and they seated us promptly. The noise level was a little uncomfortable, and made talking hard, but hopefully they'll return to normal after the promotion is over.

This place is a great choice for wine lovers. Their wine list is extensive, and they have a huge selection of wines by the glass, so you can explore new wines without committing to a whole bottle. That said, we decided to get a bottle to share: Folie a Deux Menage a Trois (2003 I think, around $30 at the restaurant). This was a very smooth, soft red with not much structure or character, but very easy to drink. Definitely a decent wine, but nothing exceptional.

I decided to order off their main menu, and had the crab wontons to start, then the lobster macaroni bake. The wontons were very good (a little oily), but the sauce they were served with was an odd choice and didn't work in my opinion. (It was a creamy ranch-style sauce with not much flavour. I'd have preferred an asian soy/citrus/ginger/chilli concoction.) The lobster bake was disappointing - it very oily and had very little cheese flavour - I expected a good rich cheese sauce, instead there was a oil-slick at the bottom of the dish. The lobster was good, though. The final nail in the coffin was the presentation - topped with deep-fried carrot and leek jullienne, and so hot that about 30 mins later I was still waiting for each mouthful to cool down before I could eat it. I'd avoid the deep-fried garnish and use a wider, shallower baking dish so it cools quicker.

Other ordered from the $20 fixed menu, and seemed to like their food. A ordered an apple and stilton salad to start and a pesto pasta for mains, which were both very good. Finally, the desserts looked good, although no-one seemed to rave about them. Our server forgot to ask me or A about dessert, so we didn't have any, and also never checked to see how we were enjoying our food, so service was spotty. (Skipping dessert probably was better for the waist-line though...)

Overall, an average meal out, made memorable by the nice wine and company. (It turns out we can get into quite a frenzy talking about Judge Roberts and his Supreme Court nomination).

Wine: 2001 Fleur Du Cap Cabernet Sauvignon

Region: Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa
Score: 90%
Price: $10
Colour: Inky red
Nose: Medium blackberry with some smokiness and must/damp leaves.
Taste: Medium to heavy finish, velvety, smooth mouth feel. Good structure, well integrated tannins that are start out strong and fade as the fruit and smokiness becomes apparent. The fruit is quite subtle and there's also some gaminess and mustiness on the palate. After 30 mins of breathing, the attack is much smoother. This is a nice "meditation wine" or would go well with red meat, stews, etc.

Links: Fleur du Cap's website, their notes for this wine

Technorati Tags: wine wine tasting food & wine

Happy Birthday TAR!

Today marks the 40th "birthday" of the Tibetan Autonomous Region in China. I wonder how many Tibetans were really celebrating? If you read the Chinese reports (like this one), everyone is ecstatic and the economy is booming.

Foreigners weren't welcome though... Some snippets from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"Ceremonies marked the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1965, which followed the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army in 1951 and a failed uprising in 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled to India.
Foreign tourists have in effect been barred from Tibet as China celebrates its widely resented rule of its restive population under a system of administration presented as autonomous self-rule. Travel agents in Lhasa said the processing of the special permits foreigners need to enter Tibet has been halted until September 10"

This article outlines the changing relationship between Nepal, India & China, and how this affects the Tibetan liberation movement.

Brand-spanking New Name

I hope you like the new name for this blog. (So far at least one person has commented positively, so that's good) I'm also trying to get RSS feeds working (via Feedburner), so hopefully IE7 will recognize this page as having a feed, and more people will potentially be able to subscribe.

Plugging my Flickr site

I have some pictures up on Flickr here.
Here's a nice one from our recent trip to South Africa on the right. (Click on the image to go to Flickr and leave a comment...)

Currently we're still going through the South Africa pictures, so there are not that many public ones, but we should have them sorted and available by the end of this week, so check back.

Flickr is truly an amazing site and makes it very easy to find interesting pictures - either using tags that people add to their photos, or groups sharing a theme, e.g.:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/monkey_business
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/issaquah

Redmond Saturday Market

Last Saturday we went to the Redmond farmers market for some groceries and breakfast. Their selection of fresh produce is better than the Issaquah market, which has more crafts, plants and "made things".

We had some scrumptious pancakes for breakfast (crepes, I guess, since they were made on a large flat griddle and ultra-thin). Alyssum and I shared a goat-cheese, spinach and roasted pepper crepe, and then shared a crepe suzette for dessert. (The latetr was made with yummy orange butter cream and real Grand Marnier).

Produce-wize we got lots of tomoatoes (for fresh salsa), some chillis, two bunches of baby beets, and a half-flat of raspberries. Some of the raspberries are now sitting in vodka infusing, so we'll see how that turns out. We also got some great boursin-style herbed goat cheese spread. (At $8 it was pretty pricey - why is the cheese at farmer's markets so expensive?) Plus a great bunch of flowers that is lasting well so far...

Other markets I'd like to try are the Columbia City market that Seattle Bon Vivant often writes about. (I don't shop with $60+ tote bags, though)

Links: http://www.redmondsaturdaymarket.homestead.com/
Other markets: http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/farms/farmers_markets.htm

Best bread yet

So, I made some bread last weekend, and took it to Craig & Kathy's braai. The bread was the first recipe I've tried from "The Bread Bible", and it was incredible!

I decided to make the "Heart of Wheat" recipe, since we had bought some raw wheatgerm a while before. Some things that struck me while I was making the bread:

• Letting it rest for 20 mins when mixing by hand really makes a difference. It's a lot easier to work the dough after the rest, and it didn't stick despite being a fairly wet mixture. I used less than 2 Tbsp of flour when kneading (which is waaay less than I usually need)
• Wheatgerm gives the bread a great flavour
• Knowing more about what to do after each rise helped the texture a lot (doing a business-letter fold each time to keep some air in the bread and prevent over-working it)

The final loaf (a boule) came out nice with a nice brown, chewy crust and a moist, light but chewy inside. Definitely one to repeat!

Wine: 2000 Palazzola Merlot

Region: Umbria, Italy
Score: 75%
Cost: $18

WA gave this 90% with the notes: "Cotarella is a master with Merlot (much like France's Michel Rolland), and the 2000 Merlot (aged 12 months in French oak) exhibits complex aromas of sausage meat intermixed with mocha, coffee, underbrush, black cherries, and black currants. Sweet, full-bodied, ripe, sexy, and seductive, this lush, opulent 2000 should be drunk over the next 5-8 years".
Sadly, I didn't agree. The wine tasted slightly corked, so perhaps that's the problem. The nose was very subdued and flat, and the wine tasted - well, corked. I have 2 more to try and hopefully they'll be OK.

Technorati Tags: wine wine tasting food & wine

Wine: 2004 Boekenhoutskloof "The Wolftrap"

Region: Franschoek Valley, Western Cape, South Africa
Score: 85%
Cost: $10

This is a great red blend - one review I read compared it to Rhone reds. Deep red, with a complex, full-bodied taste and great finish. This is not a light wine, and goes best with rich food, meats, or good cheese and bread. There's some definite bite - some spiciness, acidity, and tannins but not at all harsh, just beautifully well balanced. I'm keeping some for the cold fall and winter nights ahead...

Update: 11/7/2005: Spittoon has a review of this wine up, he gives it 92/100!

Technorati Tags: wine wine tasting food & wine

Wine: 2002 Apex Outlook Vineyards Chardonnay

Region: Yakima Valley, Washington State, USA
Score: 85%
Cost: $20

I've been meanign to try the 2002 vintage for some time - the 1999 blew me away, and is getting really hard to find. The 2002 didn't disappoint
The 2002 vintage is a nice golden yellow, very smooth and well rounded, with a delicious dry yet velvety finish. There's a touch of pears and caramel on the nose and palate, but it's less cloying and rich than the 1999 (less oak/malic acid?) This went really well with the Japanese A and I served (miso, noodle salad and sushi).

Links: http://www.apexcellars.com/wines/outlook/01.php
Technorati Tags: wine wine tasting food & wine

My new pets

I have a few million new pets! They demand to be fed regularly, and are currently living in the fridge... And after a few days of service, my fabourite activity is shoving them in the oven and eating them!

Sounds barbaric, eh? I'm talking about yeast :)
After Ben's wife brought some delicious home-made bread to our wine tasting a few Fridays ago, I've been interested in making bread "the old-fashioned way". Quick bread dough is pretty good, but I thought it'd be interesting to try something new, so I've been trying bread recipes using a sponge starter.

The starter is basically yeast, flour and water - much more runny than the final bread dough. The yeast consumes the sugar in the flour and gradually multiples. Each "iteration" of the sponge uses just 3/4 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of warm water. You then let the least do their stuff (4-6 hours at room temp, or 12-14 hours in the fridge). After this time, you either use some of the sponge to make bread dough, or feed it again and keep it active.

So far, I've been using "The Joy of Cooking"as my recipe book, but last weekend I got a copy of "The Bread Bible" from the library - quite a thick tome! I've made 2 batches of bread using the sponge starter, and so far I love the texture and flavour. The flavour still could be richer and more "bready" - I have yet to get a real fermented taste from the bread, so I can probably let the starter go for longer... Anyway, more experimenting is ahead.

One of these days I'd also like to try making sourdough using airborne yeast. (And of course, lambic beer, but that needs a ton of equipment, and A wouldn't like the beer bottles sitting in the bath tub a la Alton Brown)

Technorati Tags: food & wine bread

Friday Wine Tasting: 2001 Simonsig Merindol Syrah

I bought this in 2002 at the winery in South Africa. Sadly, the travelling the wine has done and dodgy storage (I don't have a wine cellar or wine fridge) took their toll. This wine was not "off" but was pretty close, and my tummy didn't appreciate it.

I'd write more about the aroma and flavour that was still evident, but it'd be a sad reflection of the wine's true character. Instead, I'll keep my eyes open for well-stored bottles if they ever make it to the U.S., and start storing my wines better.
Check out the site below for information on the awards Simonsig has won recently for their Shiraz wines. Oh, and some time I should dig into why some wineries call their Shiraz 'Syrah' - is it pretention, or a difference in the grapes, or ... ? South African wineries seem to use 'Shiraz' more often than 'Syrah'

Link: http://www.simonsig.co.za/

Technorati Tags: wine wine tasting food & wine

Fun with SkypeOut

I installed Skype last week, and was very excited to get it working. The main attraction for me was making cheap long-distance calls to my mom back in South Africa - $0.09/min is a great rate, a fair amount cheaper than my current dial-around service. Plus, being able to call from work or anywhere my laptop can get broadband Internet access would have been call.

Today I uninstalled it.

Here's why:
To make calls to land lines, you need to buy credits - called SkypeOut credits, using a credit card or other online payment (paypal, etc.) "No problem", I though, whipping our my VISA card.
But several tries led nowhere - each time I got close to the final payment step, the Skype website would inform me that "one of the address fields is missing or invalid" and I'd have to re-start the process.
Firstly, this error is patheticly vague. Which field is in error? Is the information missing or invalid?
Secondly, I'd entered the information exactly as I've always done for online purchases. I've never had a problem on any other website. Clearly, Skype had issues.

Then, I finally got past this hurdle (I moved the street number for my condo, so instead of:
Street:XXX Blah St #YYY
House number: {empt}
I had:
Street: Blah St #YYY
House number: XXX

Now, the VISA authorization seemed to be in progress. Sadly another speedbump was on the way - Verified by VISA, a new credit-card validation service kicked in. My bank recently started publicizing this, but I though you had to "opt in" to the service. It looks like VISA opted me in automatically? Anyway, no problem here. The process went smoothly, and I set up the card.

However, something got gummed up in the Skype billing process anyway, and my transaction was rejected. (Probably by VISA?). I tried again, and got another rejection - both are listed in my Skype account, and now I am unable to try using my VISA card again. Payment by VISA or MC is not listed as an option anymore (possibly Skype blocks credit cards if you fail 2 attempts?)

Inline support was singularly unhelpful. They blamed me (the customer) and said I had entered my information incorrectly, with no hint that there was a problem with Skype itself.
A quick Google search brings up tons of other people hitting the same problem:
link 1 - 50% voted they can't even buy SkypeOut credits.
link 2
Google search for more...

It's pretty shocking to not see this mentioned on the Skype FAQ at all, and to see the same broken behaviour months after people started complaining publicly.

So, bye-bye Skype. I'll look for a better alternative.

Update: 5/5/2005

So after ranting, uninstalling Skype, and responding to their uninstall survey to tell them it was due to SkypeOut sucking, I tried adding SkypeOut credit again a few days later. (I must be a sucker for punishment, or just a sucker...) Anyway, it worked this time, so I re-installed and am giving it another go. We'll have to see how re-fueling my account goes...
So far the voice quality is OK - a call to my mom this past weekend worked well, although she reported a delay before my voice made it through to her. (Her voice seemed to come through without any noticeable delay).