Bike!

I fixed my bike today. ^_^
All by myself. ^_^

And did it by removing 2 parts. ^_^

So here is the story:

I got this bike from a guy off of Craigslist who was selling it for $80, which after my research, is pretty cheap in this area. He was advertising it as a Miyata Street Runner hybrid, which intrigued me. Turns out, the bike may have originally started as a Miyata hybrid, but it had seen the shop and the replacement of several parts. In essence, only the frame was Miyata. But, as a non-bike enthusiast who just wants something cheap to ride to work, I paid him $60 and took it off his hands. It was in good condition for it's age.

Unfortunately, 1 month later and the thing breaks. Not terribly, though. I decided to take a stab at mech work. ^_^

As i found out through tinkering, The problem was that my rear-bike wheel had snapped slightly off it's hinge, causing it to run against the frame, making it impossible to move the bike anywhere. Pushing the back wheel back on its hinge and tightening the screws seemed to solve this for the most part, but I noticed that the wheel still touched the frame slightly. Hence why I mentioned the bike shop replacement parts. These wheels were not hybrid wheels and were too thick for the space between the frame's bars.

So I removed these metal brackets in the hinge whose sole purpose seemed to be to push the wheel forward (if I have removed something vital, someone tell me!). There was no significant effect to the gears or breaks, so tightened everything up. That whirring noise I used to hear when riding? Apparently that was the back wheel brushing up against the frame. No more noise anymore. ^_^

Unfortunately, it still takes me some effort to ride long distance. I blame my fitness level. :P


- ^_^

Indoor garden

My roommate, Nadia, and I have been trying to grow an indoor herb garden for the past month. We started from seeds (mostly because I think it's a really awesome surprise to see a sprout pop up from a pot of what used to be nothing. And then something huge develop from what used to be a little speck dropped in dirt). While the basil has flourished well enough for us to split the plant in to 2 pots, the rosemary and thyme haven't grown much bigger than sprouts. Since I woke up 7 am on a Sunday (more like 4 am and by 7 I couldn't stay in bed any longer. I was REALLY sleepy last night. My bike broke so I had to really work out to get home yesterday so when it go dark I decided to crash early), I decided to visit the plant nursery nearby. Thus I learned that perennial herbs like rosemary and thyme need a year to grow to harvest stage from seeds. So I bought some starter plants to replace our sprouts. 1 rosemary and 1 mint (after standing in front of the herbs for awhile, I realized that I don't usually use thyme all that much. Whereas mint just smells awesome ^_^).

So now our indoor herb garden consists of rosemary, basil, mint, green onion, and 2 starters of cherry tomato and peas (I want to see if I can grow these ^_^).


Meanwhile, I got impulsive and bought a bonsai. As if I don't have enough to take care of. But I remembered seeing a maple bonsai tree and finding it so impressive how beautiful the tiny leaves looked. So I thought I'd give it a go. I got a bonsai starter, pot, and pebbles to mix in the soil (apparently bonsais thrive best when the soil is very coarse and allows water to flow through easily). I don't know anything about the aesthetics of bonsai cutting, but the starter looked like it could use some love and care. It had dead leaves, some deformed, and kind of twisting in to itself in several areas to create a kind of mess. Well, this is the first go at trimming:



It's still kinda messy, but better than before. At least all the dead parts have been removed. I figure, once I let it grow more, I'll know more about where to cut to make it flow nicely.

Oh and I also bought fertilizer. I thought I could go without it, but apparently when grown in pots, plants only have a limited amount of soil to grab their nutrients from. Without nature's flow and insects, they need other aid. I got this seaweed extract fertilizer that the saleslady as the garden nursery recommended.

Puffs!

I bought a pancake puffs pan! You know, the one "as seen on TV" advertising pancake puffs as the new fun thing to cook ball-shaped foods. For breakfast.

Except. It's not all that new.

I knew of this before because of the savory takoyaki of Japan. But apparently, the Dutch have their own sweet version. Ableskivers. That's the kind of pan I got.

For only $12, this pan is of great quality, although small. Still cast iron pan. Nice.

My first test run of this was using the leftover empanada filling and making a quick liquidy mix of bisquik, soy milk, and an egg. And adding a little of this Mexican cheese I bought that was slightly salty. The result tasted better than the dumpling skin empanadas. :)


I also added my roommate's cornmeal because I wanted that texture.

I will try again in the future with cornmeal and hot dog bits.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Davidson's White Tea

I never did write about my disheartening trip to my favorite tea store in Chinatown a few weeks back. In a nutshell though, I went to Red Blossom Tea Company with the specific statement and intent of buying a white tea, but they wouldn't let me try their samples and tried to push the most expensive one on me. Basically they were dismissive and seemingly uninterested in helping me select a tea to purchase. I did write a disappointed review on Yelp.com and the store owner did apologize, so they get some credit back, but that was rude, even for a Chinese store.

Anyways, the reason I bring this up is because this eventually led me to purchase the white tea that I wanted to talk about.

I bought 1 lb of organic silver needle white tea from Davidson Tea Co. at, believe it or not, Amazon.com. It came in a brown paperbag sealed with one of those fold-in twisties. Like the way coffee is sealed. I just tried some today and it was light, sweet and of great quality white.

The price was the coolest part: $45. ^_^

It actually baffles me a bit why their white tea would be so cheap, but then again, I did believe we pay too much here in the US for tea. It could be the other stores are overcharging.... (after all, if this tea is organic, the price should be even higher, right?).

Who would have guessed? For all the high-end tea stores out there, the best deal for great quality is at Amazon.com.

Fake Empanadas

Cooking adventure #3: empanadas

These are so faked. Any Latino would probably balk at the idea, but they were fun. The recipe? Meat, seasoning, onion, some mexican cheese, and dumpling skins!

I took as much of the cooking time out as I could by using dumpling skins and pan-frying the dish. My roommate had told me before of Giada using dumpling skins as a substitute for ravioli making. The result was delicious, if not actually empanadas. Next time I will try to bake instead of pan-fry.

Pan-Fried Curry Rice Balls

Food adventure #2.

Dinner tonight was leftover curry from a few weeks back (don't worry, it was frozen in a tupperware container and recooked on the stove). I still managed to have leftovers, so got in to an experimental mood with the remains.

Pan-fried rice balls.

I got the idea from seeing instructions awhile back for yaki onigiri. This was kind of the same, except it was curry and rice mixed together.

The consistency was thick, but I was worried about it falling apart in the oil, so I added some flour to the mixture. I used my roommate's Venezuelan corn meal, which had a consistency of white flour but made of, obviously, corn (I couldn't find our bag of all-purpose flour, so had to substitute).

To make sure there was an outer "crust", I coated each ball in more of that Venezuelan corn meal. Then into the pan it went.

I pan-fried (as opposed to deep frying) it in order to attempt SOME level of healthiness, rotating it every now and then to make sure every side was getting cooked (the nice thing about the flour I found out was that the white color made it easy to tell which side hadn't touched the oil yet). I'm pretty sure this is probably still just as unhealthy, but still. Yum.

This may end up being a way I get rid of extra curries from now on! Although, next time, I may add peas or corn or some small-cut-up vegetables.

These are going in my lunchboxes for the next few days. ^_^

Chinese Bakery-Style Cake

Whew. Been awhile, hasn't it?

The thing is, with having a 40hr/wk (minimum) job and a 2nd project and dealing with daily life (insurance? taxes? car maintenance? how does the average joe do it all and still have time for the more adventurous things?), and then the NDAs preventing me from talking about what I do with most of my time, having anything to write about is difficult.

So let me interest you in one of my hobbies: cooking!

This was an impulsive decision. I don't usually bake and I've never done something like this before. I made a cake yesterday, which tasted a lot better than it looked. It was one of those Chinese bakery cakes, light, fluffy, and moist with lots of fruit. I don't have an electric beater, so to make this cake, I had to whip everything... by HAND. Never EVER make meringue by hand. You'll get there, but omg it hurts after awhile. A lot of love went in to this....

I got the recipe for this cake from Lucy Zhang's blog. She makes a lot of delicious-looking things, but this one got me especially excited. I don't have a huge love of American-style cakes because they seem so heavy and too sweet. Asian-bakery cakes feel light and just the right amount of sweet to feel refreshing. It was surprising to learn how little was actually in this cake (it's not healthy, but not terrible for you either)! I mean... 1 cake that fed 8 people (small slices, mind you) had only 3/4 cup of flour and a little less than 1 cup of sugar. I suppose the big count was the eggs, which was 6, but if you think about it, each person ate less than 1. For a cake, this is awesome, but oh so much work! I think I understand when Asian Bakeries charge $20-$30 for a standard-sized cake now. Much respect to bakers.

The frosting was whipped cream. Since this was my first cake, I didn't know better but now I do. Whipped cream does not equal whipped cream frosting. Hence the melted look.

As for fruit, I added peaches, nectarines, blackberries, and strawberries. Next time, I may go a little more traditional and use melon and strawberries (no kiwi for me...).

La Mar

Last weekend my roommate Nadia, her sister Tatyana, and I went to La Mar in San Francisco for some Peruvian ceviche. It is completely unfortunate I didn't even think to take pictures.

With the exception of a ceviche salad I had at the Apple cafeteria, this was the first time I got to eat ceviche. I sort of knew what to expect from watching Bourdain and Zimmerman on the travel channel. But for this trip, I let Nadia and Tatyana take lead and do the ordering, given their expertise. ^_^

If you've eaten sushi, then ceviche is no different in terms of the "gross factor". It is essentially raw seafood that has been "cooked" by marinating it in lemon juice and onion. The acid supposedly kills the bacteria that would otherwise be harmful.

La Mar is really nice. We sat at this lounge-like table in the bar area, which suited us. We each got an order of ceviche and shared an appetizer of empanadas and a dessert sampler. Expensive, of course, but I think well worth it for the special trip it was. I think anyone from Peru or Panama would balk at the prices, but then, the atmosphere was really good too.

I was really surprised how full I was from just eating the ceviche. We didn't even bother with the entrees we were so full.

Funny thing though. I went to the bathroom there and it was like complete night and day between the environment in the restaurant and the bathroom. The bathroom looked like it had no place belonging to as nice a restaurant as La Mar and it almost made me suspicious of the restaurant (sanitation of a bathroom should be a measurement of the sanitation of the restaurant, I think. Everyone there has to use the bathroom at some point). But then as I walked out, thinking "man, maybe this restaurant isn't as awesome as it is pretending to be" I see this sign by the door that says that the bathroom exists b/c of historic preservation. And in my head I go "ah... I see." The plaque answered the question in my head. Guess they knew. :P

INTJ

Have you ever taken a Myers-Briggs test before? They are long and tedious, but I don't know. I think they can be accurate.

I am an INTJ. And I laughed at how well the test had nailed me down, especially the faults. Heck, all the reasons of why I dislike/have-trouble-with/don't-understand/tend-to-end-early dating fit the INTJ persona.

Try googling Myers-Briggs test. They have ones that charge you money, but there are plenty that are free online too. Tell me what you get?