Sharing goodies

Published
by
mai
on July 19, 2008
in crumbs from your table and desire
. 0 Comments

I’m in a food mood (when am I not anyway?) so I’ll tell you about some goodies I found at the shops.

Burrata.

Sounds a bit like bufala, and yes it is mozzarella. But better. Think mozzarella in bag form, filled with cream and soft mozzarella chunks and other fatty goodness. One of my SILs orders this at restaurants but J and I have never bought it because it always came in about a pound-size, for say 14 dollars…which we would have sprung for if we thought our bodies could take it. I seriously think we would get sick from eating half a pound each.

When we were at Rainbow Grocery today J found a small pack of burrata. About a quarter pound, for less than 3 dollars. So together with the heirloom tomato and basil in our CSA box, some organic mission olive oil (also from Rainbow, the best tasting reasonably priced one in the grocery, acc. to J), salt and pepper…

all that we needed was our Acme baguette to dip…and slurp slurp slurp.

Dessert.

Nothing elaborate, just a square of the best tasting dark chocolate I think I’ve had. I’m a milk chocolate girl, but this one is so smooth I love it now. You can taste the dark chocolate, but it’s not bitter at all, it has a creamy smooth taste, like just the right amount of milk was added. Acckk if you see this one be sure to buy it. If it costs more that 5 dollars (mine did) just close your eyes and stop buying coffee shop coffee for 2 or 3 days, its so worth it.

You know you’re getting old when

Published
by
mai
on July 14, 2008
in lady with the spinning head
. 2 Comments

an old highschool classmate tells you “Wow, you haven’t aged a bit!!!”  :S

Well, I do feel it, this aging thing.

This year I’ve been to

  • podiatrist - for flat feet, and plantar fasciitis, and I learned I had an extra bone in my foot
  • chiropractor - arm pain, from muscles clenching and stress
  • dentist - to have a tooth taken out, tooth planing (to avert the dreaded gingivitis), and 2 more teeth to be taken out this Thursday…(Imagine, I have only 1 molar left!!!)
  • ob/gyn - high point of the exam being “Mai, so you’re turning 35, do you plan on having kids?”. She was very nice though, and agreed that not every person is meant to be a parent.
  • eye doctor - yearly glasses update

Grabe, if I were a car I’d be due for a major overhaul.

Although I attribute a lot of this to carelessness and lack of exercise. To think, the YMCA is just a few blocks away, and J and I make it seem like it is such a pain to go…hay.

It’s a bit embarrasing to admit…

Published
by
mai
on July 13, 2008
in conversation on a barstool, lady with the spinning head and the ground beneath her feet
. 4 Comments

but I cannot ride a bike.  But thankfully, SF being the bike-loving city it is, the local bike coalition offers classes for adults.  So!… in October, I get to learn yoohoo!!! It’s actually a senior’s only class, but I emailed to ask if I could join and they said ok.  At least I won’t feel like the oldest person in the group who can’t bike har har har.

It’s great to be with friends on a nice day. With food.

Published
by
mai
on July 9, 2008
in heartland and the ground beneath her feet
. 0 Comments

Is it a sign of aging

Published
by
mai
on June 28, 2008
in happiness is a warm gun
. 2 Comments

that I am getting intolerant of cutesy-poo and saccharine remarks more and more and find it increasingly difficult to make myself give a tolerant pokerface?  Thankfully, I have also learned the value of controlling myself and keeping silent, or even leaving for a bit to cool down instead of giving people a blast of what I think.

But man, is it hard sometimes.

Dogfight Raid - Dan Tan arraigned

Published
by
mai
on June 16, 2008
in Noteworthy, heartland and zooropa
. 0 Comments

Dan Tan - arrested last March 31, 2007 for charges of participating in and for being the proponent of dog fights in Antipolo City - was finally arraigned last June 5, 2008.

Months of delaying tactics had stretched into a full year and finally, for the accused, there were no more medical certificates on “illness” to present as excuse for non-appearance in court and the 60-day waiting period for their pending Motion for Reconsideration at the Department of Justice had lapsed.

Tan pleaded “NOT GUILTY” to the charge of violation of Republic Act 8485 which prohibits dogfights.

Dan Tan in dogfight arena

Tan is shown in the video-grabbed photo above participating in the said illegal act. The video clips and photos are only some of the evidence which will be presented by PAWS.

Eyewitness accounts of arresting police officers, accounts of PAWS volunteers who were on the scene at the time of the raid, veterinarian’s certificates and the confiscated pitbulls themselves are hoped to seal the country’s first dogfight conviction.

Marking of evidence is set on July 7 while the pre-trial is slated on August 28 at the Antipolo Hall of Justice.

Meanwhile, the Court has directed that representations be made with the Thailand Embassy to try to locate - Phanuwat Nunthawat, Kittiya Boonyang and Timothy Dharmajiva -Thai citizens who were arrested in the raid (who skipped the country on Holy Thursday 2007.)

Phanuwat Nunthawat and Kittiya Boonyang Wanted for Dogfighting

Phanuwat Nunthawat, Kittiya Boonyang

Timothy Dharmajiva Wanted for Dogfighting

Timothy Dharmajiva

Please forward their photos to your friends in Thailand as these are people who are currently “at large”. We need help in locating them and bringing them back to face charges in Philippine Court.

Dogfighting is illegal and cruel. Here are some file photos of the victims from last year:

Photo 1: “Midnight”, renamed Black-Black by his current foster parent, when he was rescued last March 31, 2007. His left paw was almost severed and he was on the verge of getting killed when the raid was announced.

Photo 2: Black-Black in September 2007. Just a few months after the raid, his paw is healed and he has put on some weight. Now, Black-Black is a beloved pet - happy and a bit, er, chubby.

Photo 3: The other dog rescued from the raid, “Buddy” - was a “leg dog”. He was trained to attack the legs of his dog opponents in the ring - the reason why Black-Black’s leg bore the most damage. From our video file evidence, it appears that Buddy was Tim Dharmajiva’s dog - flown in from Thailand to participate in the international dogfight rudely interrupted by the CIDG-PAWS raid last March 2007.

The “AFTER” photo was taken in September 2007. Buddy is much fatter now and the wounds are hardly visible on his face.

Read more about the dogfight raid on Lizzie’s site.

Help save dogs like Buddy and Black-Black and put a stop to dogfights.

Report dogfighting in your area to the police by calling 117. For assistance, email philpawsATyahooDOTcom.

Message of Fear

Published
by
mai
on June 15, 2008
in happiness is a warm gun and lady with the spinning head
. 0 Comments

Fatal error: Call to undefined function register_sidebar() in /home/spacemai/public_html/wp-admin/includes/dashboard.php on line 31

You know that sinking feeling in your gut, well I got it with an extra dose of regret when I tried upgrading my Wordpress installation to version 2.5.1 without backing up and got that on my screen…

Thankfully there was really helpful lady on bluehost.com who helped and told me there was a conflict between the latest Wordpress install and K2, my template.

In the end I found that it was a plugin called Disable Wordpress Widgets, that I used in conjunction with the K2 template, that caused it.

So if you use K2 and this happens — just bypass your dashboard and go to http://yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin/plugins.php and disable the plugin.  Or go via ftp and rename the plugin file.  That should solve things, if you’re lucky (like me)

BTW there’s an updated K2 V6 that works with WP 2.5.1

Surprise veggie

Published
by
mai
on June 15, 2008
in crumbs from your table
. 0 Comments

Since lunch at Slanted Door 2 weeks ago I’ve been craving for the Grapefruit and Jicama Salad I had there.  It came highly recommended by the server and I really liked the umami-ness and crunch.   So of course i searched for the recipe online, was happy to find it and now only worried about where I could buy a Jicama.

What the heck was a jicama anyway? My coworker said, oh its like a turnip, but sweet, and brown and shaped like a tomato…and it’s originally from Mexico.

Perplexing.

So today I go to the veggie market on Geary to pick up this odd root and realize.

Jicama = Singkamas.  Nye.

Come to think of it, the names even sound alike.

Anyway, try the recipe it’s delicious.

Pota

Published
by
mai
on June 6, 2008
in conversation on a barstool, happiness is a warm gun and wide awake in america
. 2 Comments

This is annoying.  I just typed a recipe for soup and when I pressed publish, it disappeared.

The blog gods are signalling dissatisfaction siguro.

Oddly attractive to me

Published
by
mai
on June 6, 2008
in desire
. 5 Comments

Ruco Line