Jan 09

Saturday in Little Saigon

We haven’t been to the Little Saigon neighborhood of Seattle since before the pandemic. Today’s trip down there was to check out the Italian ingredients at Big John’s Pacific Food Importers. You may ask (as my sister did), why would you look for Italian ingredients in a Vietnamese enclave? Simple. Little Saigon is at the northern edge of what was called Garlic Gulch, where many Italian groceries and restaurants used to be. The last Italian grocery and bakery, Remo Boracchini’s, closed in 2020. Big John’s recently moved to Little Saigon from a neighborhood south of the stadiums. Some of the prices at Big John’s are high, but it has great specials on wine.

After we bought a few provisions at Big John’s, we walked to Hello Em Coffee to check it out. This shop is located in a building with the Friends of Little Saigon. It also shares space with Little Saigon Creative, which sells jewelry and crafts made by local Asian artists. Julian ordered a Vietnamese iced coffee, while I had a hot coffee/condensed milk drink. This is about the only way I can drink coffee, with enough sugar or chocolate to tamp down the taste. Hello Em was selling its original coffee roaster. I gently steered Julian out of the store before he got any ideas.

Once caffeinated, we checked out two Asian grocery stores in the neighborhood. Hau Hau had a large selection of produce, whereas Lams was heavy on the seafood. We didn’t buy anything at either, but I took the picture below to send to my durian-crazy nephew. This was a not-so-subtle hint to his parents that they don’t have to travel to Malaysia to get fresh durian, just to Seattle.

The weather cooperated until just before we got home, when it started pouring. All in all, a good foodie stroll.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2024/01/09/saturday-in-little-saigon/

Jan 04

Artificial Intelligence in the Kitchen

Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be everywhere these days. Students use it to craft term papers with varying degrees of success. Hospitals are trying to get in on the action to diagnose patients and write progress notes. We wondered how AI would do in the kitchen.

Julian’s been messing around with Chat GPT and Microsoft Copilot. He had the latter create a few “works of art”; for example, an astronaut playing an accordion while on a space walk. Then he suggested that we see how AI can handle recipe creation. “Give me a list of ingredients.” I proposed ground lamb, dates, olives, and couscous. We received the following in response;

It looked feasible, so I gave it a try last night. The recipe was straightforward. We had all of the ingredients on hand. And it was okay.

Our version of the above recipe.

As with any recipe, a little tweaking was required. Two cups of dried couscous makes a BOATLOAD of couscous. I stuck to our usual proportion of 3/4 cup couscous to 1 cup boiling water. Upon tasting it, Julian thought it needed more dates. The recipe didn’t specify the size or amount of onion needed, so I used about 2/3 of a large yellow onion. The dish had the potential to be salty if you didn’t use low-sodium chicken broth. Moral of story: a little natural intelligence is needed to make AI work.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2024/01/04/artificial-intelligence-in-the-kitchen/

Dec 30

The Cult of Sky Flakes

Behold, the Sky Flakes cracker. To the uninitiated, it looks like a standard-issue saltine. Not to my coworkers. Sky Flakes have risen to the level of a cult.

Who knew that a modest cracker could inspire such devotion?

Sky Flakes are made in the Philippines and available in the US online or at Asian groceries in places with large Filipino populations. Unlike American-made saltines, Sky Flakes are made with palm and coconut oils, which are more available there than soybean oil. The upside from this recovering dietitian: Less hydrogenated fat, since palm and coconut oils are quite saturated to begin with. The downside from same: It’s saturated fat. Sky Flakes also don’t have salt sprinkled on top, like American saltines.

The cult of Sky Flakes began in my department when Eva was hired. Even though we had three other Filipinos in our group at the time, Eva was the one who brought in tins of crackers and told us to help ourselves. Never being ones to turn down free food, we did. Sky Flakes got us through long days of meetings and data abstractions. One of my coworkers practically lived on Sky Flakes several years ago.

Last week we had a holiday potluck at work. Our manager brought a tub of Sky Flakes. Since we had several new people in the group, they needed to be initiated into the cult. The initiation was a success. I fully expect that Asian grocery stores in the area will have a run on these crackers very soon.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/12/30/the-cult-of-sky-flakes/

Dec 02

A Trip to Post-Pandemic Portland

We visited Portland for the first time since the pandemic last week. We had three missions:

A visit to Powell’s Books, one of the P’s of Portland that I blogged about previously. Sadly, Pok Pok and Paley’s Place are no more, victims of the Covid-19 plague.

A visit to a couple Julian knew from Ithaca days who live west of Portland.

A trip to Clive Coffee for Julian. This is where he bought his espresso machine on our last trip south of the border.

We arrived in town Sunday evening and set up camp in a hotel on the northern end of the 23rd Avenue NW shopping strip. The next morning we set out for the Hawthorne Avenue branch of Powell’s. The store was larger than I remembered, and carried more general titles other than cookbooks. I bought Christmas presents for my sister’s grandkids (if you think I’m going to divulge what I bought them, forget about it) and only two cookbooks for me. Julian found two used books, one by Carl Sagan and a photography of Paris book.

My cookbook purchases.

We drove back to the hotel, stashed our purchases, and perused the 23rd Avenue strip. Kornblatt’s Deli has been replaced by another bagel shop. Kitchen Kaboodle is still alive and well. We also found Boulangerie St. Honoré. This place is an amazing ode to flour, sugar, yeast, and butter. We had breakfast there the next morning and got treats to take to our friends west of Portland.

Breads and rolls at Boulangerie St. Honoré. Photo courtesy of Julian.
One of the pastry cases. Photo courtesy of Julian.

We had a great time catching up with our friends. They moved to Silicon Valley after Ithaca, then moved north to be near their older daughter and her family. We had sandwiches for lunch, followed by pastries. Two of the pastries we brought are on the left of the middle and lowest shelves of the photo above. We also got a chocolate brioche and a blueberry danish. All were well received.

We stopped at Clive Coffee on our way out of town. Julian bought another frothing pitcher and ordered two accessories for his espresso machine. Installing those should keep him occupied for an hour or two, in addition to the tweaking required to re-optimize the espresso pull. Tea preparation is much more simple.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/12/02/a-trip-to-post-pandemic-portland/

Nov 15

A Hole in the Skyline

There’s a hole in the skyline of our neighborhood. The Douglas fir holding the eagles’ nest was taken down the day after Labor Day. The tree was dead and needed to be taken down before it fell and caused property or bodily harm. The Homeowners’ Association had to obtain numerous permits from local, state, and Federal authorities to remove the tree because it housed a protected species. We also had to wait until the eagle family left for their summer nest in the mountains. Their departure occurred later than in past years. This year’s eaglet, Junior, was a bit of a slow learner.

The tree’s demise did not go unnoticed by the neighbors. One neighbor hosted a celebration of the tree’s life two days before it came down. The contractors had an audience watching the show, including Julian. Julian’s photos of the event are posted here. Unfortunately, this was our first day back from Europe and I was up to my eyebrows cleaning out my inbox of 2 1/2 weeks of work emails.

Even though the tree’s been gone for over two months, we still catch ourselves looking toward the sky where the nest used to be. I hope the birds build a new nest in the neighborhood so we can keep track of them going forward.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/11/15/a-hole-in-the-skyline/

Sep 21

Vacation Postmortem

Now that we’ve been home for over two weeks, I’ve had a chance to sort my thoughts on this year’s European junket. Here are some words from this wiseacre if you’re planning to head to Europe in the near future:

  • Getting Covid while on vacation sucks. Airports and airplanes, not to mention crowded public spaces, are fetid cesspools of viruses. Social distancing is non-existent. Bring plenty of N95-equivalent masks and wear them. Get the latest booster shot before you go.
  • One visit was enough for Venice. Going during peak tourist season was crazy. Everything was priced to take maximum money out of tourist pockets. Julian had originally wanted to attend the Regata Storica (Historic Regatta, where craft of all kinds go up and down the Grand Canal), but I wasn’t up for standing in the heat, humidity, and crowds all day. Instead we walked up to the Jewish Ghetto, which was interesting. We had lunch at a South Asian restaurant across a canal from the Ghetto.
  • Sometimes the best places to eat are chain restaurants or buffets. This was a surprise to me. We had two dinners at the Italian equivalent of Olive Garden, Rosso Pomodoro (Red Tomato), a couple blocks from our apartment. Yes, it was touristy, but so were all the other restaurants. The salad with cantaloupe was first rate. The buffet restaurant near Schiphol Airport where we had the family reunion was excellent.
  • Renting an apartment is the way to go in Venice. This was especially true as we were still dealing with Covid.
  • If you do stay in a hotel, chat up the staff. We met a lovely young woman in Santa Cristina who was from Sardinia who helped us figure out the laundry facility in the hotel. The manager of the hotel in Misurina was very accommodating of our illness and made sure we could stay away from other patrons when we ate at the hotel.

I’m not sure where we’ll head on our next vacation. We’ve got to pay off this one first.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/09/21/vacation-postmortem/

Sep 21

The Altana

You see these everywhere in Venice: a small platform on the roof of a building, often appearing rickety and precariously attached. This is a rooftop terrace (Altana, in Italian). Venetians have been building them for centuries, and they are used for a variety of purposes: hanging laundry out to dry, growing potted plants, or simply relaxing and enjoying some sun, fresh air, and “dolce far niente” – the sweetness of doing nothing. There was an altana attached to our apartment, and from this perch we could watch gondolas and water taxis navigating the intersection of two canals below.

The view from our altana. Notice two more altanas on the other buildings.

(Text and photo courtesy of Julian.)

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/09/21/the-altana/

Sep 03

Opera Night

Opera isn’t our favorite musical genre, but we’ve gone to a few over the years. We’ve been to La Bohème and Carmen. I went to Rigoletto with our friend Bruce four years ago (my review is here). Julian wanted to see the Venice Opera House, affectionately known as La Fenice (The Phoenix) because it burned in 1996 and was rebuilt. The opera Thursday night was Cavalleria Rusticana, one I’d never heard of. The intermezzo is the only generally recognized bit of music in the piece.

La Fenice is an architectural confection. While not as large as the Paris Opera Houses (old or new), it has its charms. The façade is on a small plaza where opera fans cruise and schmooze before and after performances. Some of the audience was quite spiffed up, but nobody was wearing furs in the humid Venice evening.

La Fenice after the performance.
The view from our seats.

As you can see, we had a great view of the stage and orchestra pit.

The plot of Cavallaria Rusticana is a standard love quadrangle with jilted lovers and jealous men bent on revenge. The whole piece was less than 90 minutes long with no intermission. The scenery was minimalist. The main characters had excellent voices. The harpist took on the intermezzo full steam ahead.

La Fenice was celebrating the centenary of Maria Callas’s birth. Our level of the theater had numerous photos of the diva. She developed her vocal style from Wagnerian to bel canto in Venice during the early 1950s.

After reading my earlier post, Julian said, “Can’t you say something positive about Venice?” I’m saying it now, the opera was a high point of our visit.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/09/03/opera-night/

Sep 02

Venice as Theme Park

I’ve never been much for theme parks. I went to Epcot a couple of times when my mother was spending winters outside Orlando. I went to Six Flags Over Texas once. I’ve been to Las Vegas, a grown-up theme park, twice. Venice takes the cake as a theme park, in my estimation. Let me count the ways:

A high ratio of tourists to residents. The building where we’re renting an apartment has seven tourist rentals. Because tourists can pay more for temporary lodging, natives are priced out. We’ve gone to several restaurants this week where Italian was the second or third language spoken.

Souvenirs and more souvenirs. The streets of Venice are packed with souvenir shops, all designed to separate tourists from their money. Some of them sell T-shirts, refrigerator magnets, and hats; others sell more upscale items. This was a display window Julian saw in Piazza San Marco the other night.

How much did this souvenir shop have to pay Disney to sell these?

Theme park rides. The gondolas are Venice’s answer to bumper cars. The other night we were watching the gondolas and other boats jockeying for position in the canal below our rental apartment. Our water taxi ride from the airport was analogous to a roller coaster, given the choppy water in the lagoon.

“Add-ons.” Julian reserved a date and time for us to tour St. Mark’s Basilica. We were in and out in less than half an hour. I wasn’t feeling well; in addition, the basilica had added charges to see specific areas such as the altar.

This was as close as we could get to the altar.

I guess we can cross Venice off the bucket list after this trip. One visit was sufficient.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/09/02/venice-as-theme-park/

Sep 02

Orientation to Venice

Venice is an island. In fact, it’s numerous islands because of the canals. Bridges of varying sizes connect the islands. The bridges often have stairs, making the city a nightmare for disabled persons or tourists with lots of luggage. Venice has no land motor vehicles. The streets and alleys are far too narrow for even Vespas. Commuters and tourists alike walk or use the mass transit boats, or vaporetti, to get around.

Venice’s geography presents interesting challenges. Once in Venice, boats or human-powered hand carts move items to businesses or homes. Anything that leaves Venice has to follow the reverse route. In the mornings, workers collect trash into carts to be loaded on boats. If someone gets injured or suffers a heart attack, an ambulance boat ferries them to the hospital. See below. If the patient doesn’t survive the hospital stay, a boat may take the deceased and mourners to the cemetery, which is on the island in the background of the photo.

An ambulance boat.

Prepare to do A LOT of walking if you come to Venice. Sensible shoes are a must. (Apologies to my friends in the Cult of Cute Shoes.) The Hokas we brought have been a godsend for negotiating the streets. Instead of fighting crazy drivers and scooter riders, you’ll just be swimming against the tide of tourists.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/09/02/orientation-to-venice/

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