Sweet home San Leandro

Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house in Oakland was delicious. We had the usual:

• Lo mai fan (sp? Steamed sticky rice with Chinese sausage, sliced shiitake mushrooms, dried scallops and dried shrimp)
• An intriguing potato salad I grew up with, probably more accurately categorized as fruit salad with potatoes and mayo, and the addition of diced Fuji apples, pineapple chunks and halved longans (the last of which was actually a later development, c. 1992); sounds vile, but I promise it's good
  
• Japanese sweet potatoes and Okinawan purple yams
• Sweet jellyfish and pickled cucumbers, sprinkled with sesame seeds
  
• Cranberry sauce (the canned stuff)
  
• Honey-baked ham
  
• Pumpkin pie
• Mango cake from a Hong Kong-style bakery
  
• And last but not least, our family recipe for turkey, heavily influenced by my grandparents' years in Peru, seasoned with soy sauce and cumin -- damn near the best thing I've ever eaten.

I love that every family I know makes Thanksgiving their own somehow, e.g. Hester's family having turkey with a helping of japchae on the side, the jubilantly autumnal cranberry compote Eli's uncle makes, Keyvan's Persian feast of meat and hair (??).

I've been hiding out at my parents' house since last Tuesday night, mostly reading, catching up on some work, eating good food, and brushing up on my Chinese with the help of chinesepod. I also built out my Netvibes page with lots of great design blogs (I went from three tabs to five!) and continued my cardio streak (I'm at 12 days in a row now). I did no shopping, but I'm at peace with that. :)

Hope everyone had a restful and delicious Thanksgiving!

Favorite podcasts?

I've started to try and fit in some cardio activity on a regular basis. I've gone every day for the past 8 days now. Of course, now that I've put it in writing, I'm totally jinxed. :-)

For the first seven days, I jammed my favorite trance anthems* and zoned out, but today, I listened to two NPR Science Friday podcasts, one on Neanderthal DNA and another on deja vu. I liked it! It really made the time fly by.

Does anyone have any podcasts to recommend? I'm not really into gadgets (sorry, Keyvan) but I do like science and programs on books, music, and art. Help me continue my streak!

* This video sucks, but the song is invincible!

Happy pores!

Eli and I went to Bikram Yoga (yup, that's the hot room kind) today after work for 90 minutes of sweaty, masochistic... sweating. We were a little scared going in since we had no clue what to expect. We both freaked out for a minute when our instructor said "you might not want to drink water right now because it could actually make you more nauseous" and it was definitely hard work, but we left feeling very relaxed and cleansed.

And just because we felt like crunchy California folk tonight, we had whole wheat pita pizzas with vegetables for dinner. Yum!

Thugs don't cry

I'm watching an episode of 30 Minute Meals where Rachael Ray is obviously distraught over the recent death of her butternut squash-loving dog. The sunny disposition we've all grown to despise (at least, if you're a friend of mine, ha) feels defeated today. Her eyes look just a touch swollen from crying. And she's adding a "pet meal" to accompany the dinner she's cooking. But the weirdest thing of all: she never once mentions that her dog died. She just keeps referring to her in the past tense and starting 40% of her sentences with "that's what's so great about animals...". Awkward!!

6:56PM. Oh wait, I spoke too soon. She finally said it after a commercial break. Okay, time to clean my apartment for my visitors tomorrow...

6:59PM. Holy crap, did Rachael Ray just make me tear up a little??? RIP Boo.

Wholesome, Post-Vegas Fun

1) Sheena has been inspired recently to cook at home, which for me has the single downside that I have to do the dishes again, but other than that is fantastic. Last night she made salmon poached in chicken broth and white wine, a duck salad with green beans, and a "relish" made with avocado chunks, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, and sesame oil. Yummy. I have been doing my part to uphold an image of suburban domesticity by drinking the occasional can of beer and groaning when it's clear that the time to wash the dishes has arrived. We watched three episodes of six feet under, but got a little too annoyed by Claire's self-absorbed art school professor so had to stop at that. Later we discovered that the Music Choice channels on Comcast can actually be a pretty effective avenue for discovering new music. Pandora is still better though, since you have the ability to skip songs you don't like.

2) This morning we woke up early and caught a matinee showing of the Borat movie, which had just as many completely uncomfortable moments as hilarious ones. Sheena and I agreed that it wasn't a total bomb, but a main detractor was having to watch it in a theater with people who aren't your friends, and whose reasons for laughing hysterically at certain moments were not completely clear. Because of this, I would recommend to those who haven't seen it yet that you just download it and watch it with friends at home instead.

3) Around lunchtime we experienced the injustice of dealing with bossy matriarch-led families at crowded Asian malls during their peak hours. I was waiting in line to order food and Sheena stood scoping for empty tables. After ten minutes of scoping, I saw a man get up and Sheena go over to establish ownership of the table. A 60-something grandmother then came over and informed her that it was "her table", even though she had just seconds ago materialized from one of the aisles of movie rentals. Sheena had no choice but to admit defeat and avoid being trampled by the group of children the woman proceeded to wave over in a celebration of victory. Injustice? Or injustice?

4) After a horrible lunch at Harry's Hofbrau (Munich-style restaurant on Saratoga Ave in San Jose specializing in sauerkraut and lard) we went to get haircuts at Z Salon and then some coffee next door at Bellano. Bellano is a college-town-y, independent cafe, which in the San Jose area is really a find. They even had the XM radio indie rock station playing, which seemed a little odd when combined with the oldster-staring-out-the-window clientele. A song came on that I really liked and I was able to ask the guy working behind the counter what it was. So if any of the following potentially misleading descriptions are appealing to you, you might want to check out mew - the zookeeper's boy: Danish, Royksopp with guitars, epic, bleak, voices echoing through snowy landscapes, music Eli likes.

Trip to Las Vegas and Other Things

This is Eli--since I haven't posted in a while (long enough for Sheena to call me a "guest blogger" in her last post, ouch) I thought I would clear that up first.

vh-1 is now showing the 100 greatest songs of the 80s, which is awesome. It has graphics from the original Pole Position game for Nintendo in the intro. It's on #64 right now (Paula Abdul, Straight Up) and favorites so far include Gary Numan's "Cars", Lionel Richie's "All Night Long", The Pretenders "Brass in Pocket" and Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody." You can also watch videos on the site (you have to watch the "Whip It" video at #63). Also, apparently Thomas Dolby ("she blinded me with science") later went on to start a company in silicon valley called Beatnik, which is involved with wireless music licensing or something like that. Maybe he lives in Cupertino and shops at 99 ranch (he has a crush on an asian girl in the music video, so not unlikely).

Highlights from our trip to Las Vegas this weekend:

1) Sheena parlayed a $5 investment in nickel slots into a profit of $14.20, all within 90 seconds. This equates to an annualized net profit of eleventy billion dollars. Sadly, this profit was lost in five minutes while waiting for a restaurant to open for lunch in Mandalay Bay.

2) Cirque de Soleil's "O", the water-themed acrobatic extravaganza, which we saw at the Bellagio. We sat in the "limited view" seats way off to the right, and although we didn't get sprayed with water, we did have trouble focusing on the real center of the action because it was easy to be distracted by people on the side doing things that were mostly ornamental.

3) The Sterling Brunch at Bally's on Sunday was really great. They had an endless pile of lobster claws that were precracked so you could just pull out the meat, and they also had an omelette station where they added Hennessey to the pan and set it on fire for good measure.

4) Since it was halloween we saw some people with costumes on the strip. The most creative was a group of girls dressed with headlamps and skimpy outfits, all spraypainted in gold (they were golddiggers!).

5) The Wynn, the strip's newest hotel/casino which opened up earlier this year apparently, was amazing. It was the only place in Vegas that made me feel like I was actually in Ocean's Eleven, and not at a cruise ship buffet.

6) This isn't a highlight, but a complaint. Sheena didn't want to take any pictures in Vegas--not one. I would have put some up, but because she didn't want to seem like a tourist (where else is it more acceptable to seem like a tourist? do you really want to seem like a local in Vegas?), I have none. Sorry. Instead I will give you this horrible, impersonal link.