arletterocks

mooflyfoof's and doomdoomdoom's food blogging and photos have got me all camera-happy. I made seitan and seared kale stew with toasted bulghur (OMIGOD the magical things that happen to kale when you nearly burn it!), but as good as it was, it looked like ... well ... stew.

So let's move on to the other, more photogenic part of dinner that prompted a big-eyed "That drink was goooood" from my roommate Andrea. I call it the Partly Cloudy.

The Dark and Stormy is a sweet, spicy drink that my friends Nate and Sasha introduced me to, and a grown-up version of the Trader Joe's rum and ginger ale that keeps me cool and cheerfully bleary for much of Burning Man every year. This is my own bright, kinda tangy version that uses fresh ginger, light rum and tons more citrus than the original.

( Read more... )

There are bunches of bug bites on my arms and leg. This only seems to happen on the nights the boy stays over. The pets have been treated for fleas; it should be too cool for mosquitoes ... so what mysterious bug is it that only notices my bed when it's radiating two persons' worth of heat?

(Either that, or it's actually the boy taking tiny tiny sips of my arm blood when I sleep. GAH.)

Photo from the SF Tweed Ride on Sunday:



Photo by Bici Girl

... look who got caught in a moment in the background!

Awright, I'm noticing more curiosity than I expected regarding vegan food. This is good! I like this! Because my roommates are awesome, but Splat is such a through-and-through carnivore that I get used to feeling like an alien when I jam the bottom shelf of the fridge with things like Earth Balance and vegan mayo.
( Read more... )

The other day I made this vegan Alfredo sauce (except I doubled the raw cashews to make it thicker) and lemme tell you, I was so happy I would've cried if I weren't so busy stuffing my face with pasta.

I'm lactose intolerant enough that Alfredo sauce is a crazy-rare exception -- it's tasty, but I know if I eat it I'll be rubbing my nose raw with itchy dairy allergies for two days after. NOT WORTH IT. But this? A bunch of stuff I already had lying around, 30 seconds in the blender, and then unmitigated pasta glory! With no suffering! OK yeah, not everyone stocks tahini and nutritional yeast, but as a part-time vegan, I do. This is only one reason that I am a better person than ALL OF YOU.

I celebrated this amazing discovery by then eating half a pint of dark chocolate Coconut Bliss, a dairy-free, coconut-based ice cream that made me deliriously happy to walk right past the Ben & Jerry's and plop down twice as much cash for an equivalent amount of dessert. No, really. It's the best chocolate ice cream I've had.

Today is an excursion down to Rainbow for Daiya, a vegan cheese that I'm told actually melts. And then: PIZZA. Pizza that I can eat without feeling like I swallowed a beach ball whole. I dunno about you guys, but this insane vegan trend thing going on for the last couple years is one of the best things that's ever happened to me -- right up there with learning how to stave off a hangover.

Edited to add: Um look what I caught myself typing later when IMing with Sonya:

arlette: OH MAN I GET TO EAT PASTA TONIGHT!!!!!!
arlette: with ALFREDO SAUCE!!!!!
arlette: i am even gonna make soup and PUT PASTA ALL OVER THAT BITCH

This is how much I love that damn Alfredo sauce.

Ugh. Just sent this e-mail to whoever runs "Keep On Burning," which is apparently some kind of burner social networking site:

I found a "Keep on Burning" card advertising your site tucked under my car's windshield wiper as I was leaving the playa and was not amused. I really didn't appreciate getting my car randomly flyered at the burn, of all places. Next time you might want to ask before sticking someone with your moop.

My actual ticket this year is bent in the middle and barely survived the ride home, but I made sure to tuck this stupid little business card into a safe place in my car so I could send them a pissy note when I got back.

The first rule of Burning Man is you do not talk about Burning Man.

(Oh, if only.)

( Read more... )

via pretentious & pop.

Sometimes I worry that my ego is, er, too healthy.

Then I immediately dismiss the idea as ridiculous beyond belief.

Is that proof?

Oh MAN the decongestant with pseudoephedrine in it sure works like crazy -- if "works" means it makes me growl and pretend to savage Alex's arm like a police dog.

And people wonder why I will not ever, ever, ever do speed.

How to Own the Place:

1. Walk around like you own the place.
2. Why would anything throw off your game? You fuckin' own the place!

Novice shooter's class booked! (Why is it so much easier to book a class at the shooting range than a doctor's appointment, anyway?) I've been shooting before and loved it, but formal classes are incredibly useful. (See: the Motorcycle Safety Foundation weekend course, which promptly made me a better cyclist and driver.) (Note: Get motorcycle.) The .22 they use for the class isn't especially exciting, but hey, I'm there to learn, not to get a girl-boner from firepower.

Tonight's a documentary on Scandinavian black metal at YBCA, tomorrow's the SFMOMA party for the new Avedon exhibit and then grunt work for Sand by the Ton, and more Sand grunt work the next day. Sunday's shooting and then finally watching the Jeff Buckley documentary "Amazing Grace," which I've been waiting to see again since I saw it at Cinequest in 2005. Stuff, stuff, stuff.

I worry sometimes about being an experience junkie like I'm a music junkie — a couple of Zen lessons I've read about chasing new experiences kinda make me squirm in my chair a little if I think about them too hard. But when I'm alone, my head is a comfortable, quiet place, and that's my measure of whether I'm living right. It feels like an old leather jacket that's broken in just right.

I wish I could hand that feeling off to more people, but I'm not sure how many would sign up for it if they knew how much work is involved. And if I've learned anything, it's that you can't sucker people into learning.

But now, I'm heading to House of Shields with a Cory Doctorow book — on paper! I know, right?

Saturday only. Will be there around noon. Whee!

Been going running around Lake Merritt nearly every day for a couple weeks. It's just over 3 miles -- 3.2, I think. Yesterday I plotted the route around the lake and found landmarks every half-mile so I could keep track on my run. So far I can only get about a mile and a half before I have to walk and catch my breath, then I walk about a quarter-mile and run the rest. A mile and a half isn't much, but hell -- I'm running nearly three miles in all, and that first mile and a half is inching upward every day. A week ago, I could only make it to the mile mark.

I was obsessed last week with finding the right music to run to, but ended up listening over and over again to the loudest and most obnoxious Throw Rag songs I could find. Then I accidentally ran my iPod Shuffle through the laundry, so the last couple days I've been running in time with my own breathing, which actually works even better than music.

1. Grrr.
2. Grrr grrr grrr.
3. GRRR GRRR GRRRRRRRR.
4. Sure wish I knew where my cell phone got to.*


* GRRRRRRRRRRR. **

** Or my cigarettes.

The Love Song of Alfred "Bloody Mary" Prufrock

Let us sit then, you and I,
When the morning seeps across the sky
Like a bloody Mary spilled across a table;
Let us grill, with certain sauces,
The curling shrimp,
The spears of asparagus in tart marinade
That shame restaurants spawned by Chez Panisse:
Sauces with the bite of witty argument
And inebriated intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "Is that pitcher empty?"

Let us sit and let us visit.
In the honeysuckle the finches come and go
Talking of Calexico.

All this sunny cool gorgeous weather is making me mopey as hell.

God, I hope I ever have to make this choice in person.

They're both beautiful. One looks like you could crush him, and the other looks like he could crush you. With that choice, everyone can be happy! And either way you'll get your quota of awkwardness bad posture. *hearts*

This is what I came downstairs to this morning.

Awwwwr.

Oh blessed heavens, the camera insanity I've been dealing with (incredibly blown out photos with a strong magenta cast, hideously overexposed even when I crank the aperture and ISO down and set the shutter speed to one bazillionth of a second) is probably due to a CCD failure. Meaning I can box it up and mail it to Nikon, and if something's wrong, they'll fix it for free.

This whole "not having a working camera" thing is bunk.