Breakfast in Baltimore

I've been visiting my parents a bit more frequently these days, since my mother has been having some health issues, and holidays have been around. So I've been doing a fair bit more of my cooking there as well. When visiting my folks in Baltimore, we very often have our main meal of the day sometime in the middle of it - in other words, a nice big Brunch/Lunch! Breakfast foods are a staple here, in part because I don't make them as often for myself when I'm in New York. For example, I never think to make pancakes just for myself - it just feels a bit sad and lonely eating pancakes alone. There are exceptions: the recipe below for Dutch Baby is probably the breakfast food I make most often for myself at my apartment (aside from eggs, of course, because eggs are awesome), because it's easy to make just one serving with relatively little effort, and I always have the ingredients around. But I'd never make Swedish Pancakes (Crêpes) just for myself. Anyways, while I generally don't treat breakfast as the 'most important meal of the day' that it supposedly is, I DO quite enjoy a nice breakfast, even if it's a dinner time. So here are a pair of my favorite breakfast recipes that I have made (with my dad, generally) on recent visits to Baltimore. Both these recipes are just eggs, milk, salt, butter, flour (and a bit of sugar for the crêpes) - it's amazing the difference proportions can make!

Dutch Baby: (serves 3)

3 tbs butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup flour
pinch of salt









This is a 4 ingredient recipe (5, if you include salt), and all you need is an oven, a pan, and an Osterizer. Oh, you don't have an Osterizer? That would be the first mainstream blender ever sold in the United States, but unlike "Xerox-ing", "Osterizing" never really took hold as a household word - so any blender will suite your purposes here. My father estimates that our Osterizer is from somewhere between 1950-1955, so about 60 years old. And it still functions perfectly - let's see your fancy modern blender in 60 years, shall we? But yes, this super simple recipe is fast, easy, and delicious, looks beautiful, and is great for breakfast, brunch, or breakfast-for-dinner.


Preheat oven to 400F. Melt the butter in the pan, wobble the pan around so that the bottom is nicely coated with it. Add ingredients, in order, to the Osterizer, blending as you do so. Pour into pan, and bake for 10-15 minutes, until a loverly, puffy golden brown! And that's it! Eat right away (it starts to deflate a bit if you let it sit) with maple syrup (I always heat mine up prior to serving), or with powdered sugar and lemon, or with a bit of jam. Now note, this serves three quite nicely, and is also really really easy to divide by three. So if you want to scale up or down, it's really easy to do so! When I'm at my apartment, I occasionally make a 1/3 recipe for myself in a circular 8 inch pan, which is about right for one. If you want to make more or less, just change proportions and pan size.

Next, a more complicated but equally (or, dare I say, MORE) delicious breakfast food.

Swedish Pancakes (Crêpes)

3 eggs

1 tbs sugar

1-1/3 tsp salt

175 mL flour (~ a scant 3/4 cup)

500 mL milk (~ a generous 2 cups)

3 tbs butter – for cooking

These are just about ready to flip!

This recipe takes a bit more effort, but is extremely worth it and is wonderfully delicious. When I'm visiting home, we can use the cast iron skillet that my dad owns - we can put it atop of two burners to heat it up. However, you can also make these in a regular non-stick pan - it just harder to get the crepes out if you do it this way, and harder to maneuver around when flipping them.

Mix eggs, sugar, salt, and a little flour to the blender, and blend. Add the rest of milk and flour slowly to thin the mix and blend again, thoroughly. Let sit for a half hour before use (this is not, strictly speaking, required, but it is recommended. I've definitely forgone the half hour and it's turned out fine, though, and cut it down to ten minutes). Use a HOT skillet (the cast iron one mentioned before, or just a nice non-stick pan) thoroughly coated with butter. When we use the skillet, we generally keep a stick of butter in the freezer to keep it from melting, and between each batch we butter the skillet thoroughly with the stick to get a nice, even layer of butter. Pour out the crêpes large and thin - you can actually use some implement to make it more circular or you can tilt the pan, or blow on them in order to shape them a bit better. Watch the crepes carefully, and flip when it is just jelled, (and still has some moisture in the center) - there should be little bubble like features in the centre, see the picture. Let it sit for another minute or two, until the other side is cooked. You should be able to get under it easily with a spatula, and they should be a nice golden brown on both sides.

Now, you can just eat these like this, and they'll be wonderful. Dad and I generally have them with maple syrup, though my mother always is sure to comment when we do this that it's not the FRENCH thing to do. The 'French' thing to do is to have them with some sugar and a dash of lemon juice - this is how my mom eats them. But there are a lot of other ways you serve this base recipe that are also delicious! For example, once you've got the crepes flipped and mostly cooked, you can put a filling in the middle and fold the crepe in half, cooking it a little longer to warm the filling. If you want to make a more savory meal of it, you can use ham and cheese as a filling, letting it sit on the pan so the cheese melts. Or if you want to stick to the sweet side of things, honey and apples. Or just honey. Or berries and fresh whipped cream. Or chocolate chips (letting them melt a bit!) with bananas. Or PB&J. Or just the jam, or just the peanut butter. Or Nutella. Or go all out and make Crêpes Suzette with a grande marniere orange sauce and vanilla ice cream on the side! The point is, there are many amazing ways you can serve them, and it can be a lot fun to experiment. Bon Appétit!

Pardon the Delay: A Months Worth of Doings

So! It's been a busy month, or there abouts. Apologize to people for the delay, but I should be back on schedule now. So the question is, what have I been up to?

Various holidays - going to Baltimore for Saint Paddy's day, for one. My family has a tradition of going to Jenning's Pub (in Catonsville, MD, a hop skip and a jump from our house) every Saint Patrick's day since I was a kid, for corned beef and cabbage, and mulligan stew. Every year, they have those dishes (plus corn beef sandwiches) for $3.17 a plate - I get one of each, my dad gets 2 CB&C plates, and my mom usually gets a sandwich. And since then, I've added beer to the order. This was, in fact, the place where I had my first legal drink upon turning 21. We've had the same waitress for years --  Peggy -- she has an amazing memory for her customers, and its lovely to catch up with her. So it was nice that the week  of Columbia's spring break, I was able to start by heading to Baltimore and enjoying the meal there.

Sea Lion Colony

After St. Paddy's, I flew to Santa Barbara. Spent a few days there with Benson, then we rented a car and drove up California's Route 1 to San Francisco - it's the most amazing and beautiful drive! Benson and I have done this drive before, in the opposite direction - a few years back we took about a week, driving down through Santa Cruz to see relatives, stopping at a B&B in Monterey for a few days, followed by a couple days camping in Big Sur and trekking about, ending in Santa Barbara. This time, we did it in a single day. In addition to a marvelous view of the ocean there are several nice stops along the way for a day trip, most notably an elephant seal reserve and Nepenthe, a lovely restaurant in Big Sur with a stunning view of the ocean and marvelous food. We even could see whales in the distance, in addition to numerous birds, and of course enjoyed our delicious beet salad, and a meal of some very tasty roasted brussel sprouts.

The view from Nepenthe

This was followed by a long weekend in San Francisco. I've visited Benson there enough that I have already done most of the touristy things, and often we find ourselves simply trying to find ways to kill time between meals. Because one of the finest things about SF is the food. My uncle also lives in SF, so it is always nice to see him, as well - we all went to the Asian Art museum and the SF Symphony together, for example, in addition to wandering about and eating delicious food. Meals of note include Indian (http://www.dosasf.com/ - South Indian food with a very nice selection), Dim Sum,  Shanghai, Japanese (http://kappougomi.com/ - has AMAZING fish, very traditional Japanese, but no sushi whatsoever), and Moroccan (http://www.aziza-sf.com/ - this place hass a Michelin star, but Benson and I first ate there before it got it and raised all the prices. However, we still return semi-regularly because it has the MOST AMAZING LAMB SHANK EVER. We also tried another lamb dish there this time, which was also delicious. But the lamb shank is still the best.) So California was also lovely. And then I flew back to NY and returned to work, of course. And returned to Baltimore the following weekend for Easter. Where my family played scrabble, dyed Easter eggs, watched movies (The lovely documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi", and an old comedy called "Darling How Could You?").

The Easter Eggs were particularly fun - it had been a while since I actually dyed Easter eggs, since usually we visit my grandfather in New Jersey, but mom wasn't really up for traveling this year, so I went home instead. So I made sure to go all out on the eggs - in addition to the dye (standard Red/Yellow/Green/Blue dye in hot water with a bit of vinegar, then mixes of colors once I had the solids), I also got a couple of candles to experiment with wax drippings. Now, when I was in 3rd grade, my class made decorated eggs using some very fine wax something or others - I don't recall exactly what, but it allowed you to make super detailed designs in wax on your eggs, then dye the eggs, then remove the wax to reveal the patterns. My make shift double candle and toothpick system wasn't quite as good, to say the least. After a couple of dry runs with solid colors, my first waxy egg (with "Mom" written on it) had the wax fall off entirely when I dipped it into the dye. So that one was a bit of a wash, other than being a nice blue color. My second egg ("Jen") had the opposite problem - apparently I was a bit careless where I rested the egg when I was decorating it, because instead of the wax falling off, there was wax all over it, not just where I intended. So decorating that egg resulted in a kind of swirly pattern on half of it that LOOKED pretty cool, but wasn't wholly intentional and you couldn't see my name on it. The next one however ('Dad'), came out pretty clear. You can see in the picture that it's actually legible.  The last egg I did was first dyed a solid yellow. Then I drew large circles on it with wax and dyed THAT green, so it came out green with yellow polka dots. I was quite happy with that one - it still had a bit of a swirl thing going on for part of it, but it looked pretty cool.

Easter Egg Waxing in Progress!
While the process failed on THIS egg, it worked
well in general, so I'd recommend giving it a try.

So I had a nice Easter. Since then, I've mostly just been focusing on work and catching up on things. Not that I'm just working. I've gone out with friends a few times (I have a semi-regular "girls night" with some friends from undergrad, for example). I've cooked a few things around the apartment, but nothing particularly special. I've been rereading (since getting back from South Africa) the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. The final book of the series was released recently, and it's been a while since I've read them and it's a LONG series and I've forgotten a lot of the plot threads. So the re-read is an ongoing project - I've just started "A Path of Daggers" (book 8/14) so I'm over half-way there! However, I'm going to have to put it on hold for a little bit, as some folks in my department are doing a read of "The Great Gatsby" in preparation for the movie coming out in a few weeks - so I'll be reading that at some point soon.

I'm actually home in Baltimore this weekend, and anticipate being here for the next several weekends (and back in NYC during the week), because my mother has just had hip-replacement surgery. So I'll be visiting with her, and helping out Dad, and generally just being around. I doubt I'll be going out much while here, other than to the hospital. She should be home by the time I visit next weekend, though, so I'll mainly be around the house. Plenty of work I can do at home, one of the nice things about being an astro grad is a flexible work schedule and being able to just work off my computer, pretty much anywhere. So that's that for now! I'll be aiming to start up my once a week blogging again, not quite sure how I got out of it - I skipped one week and then all of a sudden I hadn't updated the site in a month. Oh well!

At the Farmers Market: Winter Veggies

Right next to Columbia University, every Thursday and Sunday, there is a local farmers market where you can get fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, bread and grain, and all the rest of farmer markets greatest hits. During the winter, the selection is a bit more limited, but it's still really a good place to get produce, and I try to go fairly regularly. It's good for cooking inspiration and it encourages me to eat my vegetables - I love veggies, but it's easy to neglect them. While the exact selection changes from week to week, there are some pretty standard items you see frequently. Apples, potatoes, onions, garlic, various greens, etc; and this week, I picked up a nice acorn squash and some lovely parsnips. I've enjoyed both of these vegetables a lot, and both of them were originally introduced to me by my friend Kaila (who has been featured in this blog before). The roasted acorn squash recipe I got directly from her during college, and she was the one who first made pan roasted parsnips for me (pictures of which you can see in the blog post "Fun Times with Kaila and Benson"). This post is featuring a different parsnip recipe, which was inspired, indirectly, by my father.

My dad collects comic books, and is very fond of Disney comics - particularly Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and the rest of Duckburg. One of the best (or really, the best) duck writers is Carl Barks, the man who first came up with Scrooge McDuck, in the late 40s. One of his stories is "the Golden Fleecing," where Uncle Scrooge goes in search of the famed golden fleece. Long story short, he runs into a tribe of "Larkies" (based on Harpies) who kidnap him and force him to judge a cooking contest (as the richest duck in the world should have the most refined taste). He throws the contest in order to escape, but the dish that he must cause to win is 'parsnip pudding' - and his least favorite food in the world is parsnips. So when I first mentioned to my father that I had discovered the deliciousness of parsnips, this story immediately sprang to mind, and he requested that if I was going to make parsnips for him, that I make Parsnip Pudding. Now, honestly, the recipe I made was just OK, but as I tasted while I went, I found that one of the initial stages of it, when you pureed the parsnip before mixing with other stuff and baking, was pretty good on its own. Parsnips have a very nice, distinct flavor, so you don't really NEED that much more. So, the next time I made parsnips, I decided to make something more like a mashed potato, a Parsnip Puree, rather than baking it with cheese and onions and all sorts of other things. So below, I present the results of this weeks trip to the farmers market!





Roasted Acorn Squash
Acorn Squash
Butter
Brown Sugar
Maple sugar or other flavorings (optional!)

A very simple, tasty dish with very little preparation. It does take a while to bake if you want it sufficiently soft, but if you are making it, it's worth the wait for it to be soft throughout. (Also, Kaila informs me that you can take your cleaned half squash, place it face down in a bowl of water, and zap for several minutes before you bake it, so that it doesn't take as long to bake - I haven't tried this yet.) First, slice the squash in half lengthwise, from stem to bottom, so you have two symmetric halves. Next, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, similarly as you would when carving a pumpkin (they are, after all, closely related). At this point, you can save the seeds to roast as a snack for later, or just toss them. They're pretty tasty, though, so I'd recommend using them! Take your two halves (or just one, and fridge the other one for another day - one half is one serving) and put in a small baking pan and fill the pan with a couple inches of water so that you don't burn the bottom of the pan. Next, cut a few thin slices of butter and put around the rim of the squash to keep it moist, and a couple bigger chunks (a bit under a tbs total) in the hollow of the squash. Next, sprinkle the whole thing generously with brown sugar, the edges and the middle. Now, I also have some lovely maple sugar, which I also lightly sprinkle over the entirety of the squash, for an additional flavor. You could also try it with cinnamon sugar if you'd like! Bake at 400F for ~1 hour, until the squash is soft and you can easily poke it through with a fork. At this point, you'll find that the squash is making a nice little bowl, with a sugary/buttery sauce in the middle. To eat, simply scoop out bits of the squash with a fork (or a spoon) and dip in the buttery sauce. Just be careful not to poke through the skin, or you will find your sauce drips through into the bowl - but the flesh itself should peel off the skin fairly easily.


Now, we still have those seeds from the squash, so there is no need to waste them. You can make an easy, light, crunchy snack out of them. I got this recipe from my friend Lauren, and there are many variations you can do. I like to use just salt and pepper (as I do tend to prefer salty snacks, as I've mentioned in SEVERAL previous posts), but if you prefer, you can make a sweeter variation with sugar and cinnamon, or a spicy version with cayenne pepper and garlic powder, or whatever your snack choice might be!



Pumpkin (or squash) seeds
Pumpkin (or squash) seeds
veggie oil
salt and pepper
      (or  cinnamon sugar, or whatever you want!)

Put a bit of oil on a cookie sheet, so that the seeds won't stick - or alternatively, line the tin with parchment paper. Take your seeds and wash them (making sure they're separated and don't have any stringy squash guts stick to them), and then pat them dry. In a small bowl, add a dash of oil - just enough to coat them so things will stick - then add your spices and mix well. In truth, when I made these the other day, I just put extra oil on the cookie sheet, mixed around the seeds a bit, then grated salt and pepper (as I have grinders for both) over the whole thing, then mixed them in the pan and grinded a bit more on top - you want the seeds to be in a single layer, spread out over the pan. Place the pan in the oven at 200F and bake for about an hour. After 30 minutes you should check on them, and mix them up a bit, then spread out into a single layer again. Check again at the 45 minute point, since you don't want them to become over done. By the time they're done, they should be nice and crunchy and a toasty brown; just pop one in your mouth to see if it's done!

Whipped Parsnip Puree (2-3 servings)
2 large Parsnips
1-2 tbs Butter
~3/4c Milk
Salt and pepper (to taste)

 Start some water on to boil. Meanwhile, peel and roughly chop your parsnips. The thinner you chop them, the less time it will take to cook them - but you don't have to make them TOO fine. Add a bit of salt to the water, and boil the parsnips for 20-30 minutes until soft. Strain, then put them in the blender, with your butter and enough milk that it will blend. As you blend, keep adding milk until it's a nice, light, fluffy texture that blends easily - this will be lighter than all but the fluffiest of mashed potatoes. Add some salt and pepper, perhaps a little cayanne, to taste. And voila! A nice, simple dish which you can startle guests with by not specifying what it is and letting them assume it's mashed potatoes. They really do look like mashed potatoes!

Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Quiche

I've been pretty busy catching up with work and such since I got back from South Africa, but everyone needs to eat, and if you are going to eat, you may as well eat well! This is a favorite dish of mine, which I only started making about 2 years ago - I wanted to make a quiche, but the only vegetable I had around the apartment were onions (I always have onions and garlic floating around - they are bare necessities in my kitchen), and I happened to have some goat cheese in the fridge. So, I looked up a recipe for onion/goat cheese quiches and found a LOT of them - so this is my blend of several recipes scattered across the internet.  As a bonus, this is a good vegetarian meal! 


Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Quiche
1 standard pie crust
2 red onions
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
4-8 oz goat cheese (depending how cheesy you want it, or how big the packet of goat cheese you bought happens to be... I'd tend towards more than less, but it's really up to you. I usually just put in the whole chunk of goat cheese I purchased.)
3 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup cream
nutmeg
salt and pepper
cayenne pepper (optional, to taste)

Onions: I put this step first because it takes the longest, but while the onions are cooking, you should deal with pre-baking your pie crust, as well. But to get a nice caramelization going on your onions, you need to cook them slowly, over the course of about an hour. First, french your onions. If you are not familiar with this term, that's OK, I wasn't either when I made this recipe for the first time. What you are going for is long, thin strands of onion. So, chop of the top and bottom of the onion, and peel it. Next, slice the onion in half, down the length of the it (from the top to the bottom), like an orange splits. Then, in the same direction, cut thin slices off of the onion, so you get nice long slices - see the picture to the left! Once your onions are all frenched up, put some olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Add the onions, sprinkle some salt over them, and cook for 10 minutes until they're starting to become soft and translucent. At this point, reduce the heat to LOW, and cook for about 30 minutes more (moving them around occasionally) until they're becoming brown and very soft. Add the balsamic vinegar and mix well, and cook 10 minutes more on low until they're caramelized and delicious! Then remove from heat and set aside.

Honestly, these onions are delicious by themselves, but take a while. So if you think you'll have use for them, you may as well cook some extras up while you are doing this. They're really good, sweet, even,  and consider that they're basically onions and vinegar. Mind, it IS balsamic vinegar, the most delicious vinegar ever! Silly though it may be, I still remember the first time I had it balsamic as a salad topping, at a German restaurant in DC - I was just amazed at how tasty the stuff was, and insisted my parents buy some right away for the next time we had salad at home. But then, I do tend to have a memory for food -  seriously, I can completely forget a face I've met only once, but take me to a restaurant I've been to once before, and I'll tell you exactly what I ate and how I liked it. Ah well.

Pie Crust: Preheat your oven to 400F. Make up your pie dough. Now here, I admit I cheat a bit. I don't actually make my own pie crust very often. I've made it via a mix, and I've made it when baking with friends who have their own recipes, but when I'm just cooking for myself, I generally cheat and buy frozen Pillsbury pie dough - it's pie dough, NOT pre-baked (as those tend to get dry), which you can cut up, or pre-bake yourself, or whatever you want to do with your pie crust. I pretty much always have a box in my freezer for spontaneous pie or quiche. Very useful! Anyways, once you have your pie crust dough, fit it into a standard pie pan. If you don't have a pie pan, I have, in the past, improvised and used a 8-inch circular cake pan, which will work just fine - however, I generally use my grandmothers pie pan, much easier to deal with. At this point, if you happen to have them, you can weight the crust down with pie weights. Alternatives include dried lentils, or beans, or whatever - the point is to prevent the bottom from puffing up and deforming while the crust bakes - I generally skip this step and it works out fine, but it certainly doesn't hurt to do. Pre-bake for 10-15 minutes (or whatever your pie recipe calls for) until its a nice, light brown. It will be going back in the oven later, with quiche in it, so don't over do it or the outer crust will get a little too toasty. (Mmm... toasty.). Let cool.

Onions and Goat cheese on the bottom

Filling and Baking: Preheat the oven to 325F. Blend milk, cream, egg, spices, and up to half the cheese until liquified and homogenous. Take your onions, and spread about half of them on the bottom of your pie crust, and crumble some more of the goat cheese on top of that. (In this particular pie, I was using 4 oz of goat cheese total - 2 oz in the blender, 1 oz on the bottom, and 1 oz sprinkled on top. I generally use a little more, but that's what I had around today.) Then pour your filling into the tart. Top with the rest of the onions and goat cheese (it will sink into the pie as you bake it, but you want it layered a bit). Bake for ~45 minutes until starts browning on the top - it's a good idea to check on it every so often, as you don't want it getting overdone, either.

Filled, not baked, and topped with
the remaining onions and goat cheese

This is friggen' delicious. My department has 'morning coffee' twice a week, with people rotating to bring in snacks to go with coffee, which I like to volunteer for every once in a while. Of the various things I bring in, this is definitely one of the most popular. I also like to bring in homemade bread with my bread machine, since usually one quiche by itself wouldn't be enough for everyone (and it tends to disappear FAST). On this occasion, however, I made it all for myself (and for my roommate, who made up a nice salad to go with it), for dinner and a nice lunch tomorrow.

Travelogue: Stellenbosch

This will be a short entry, covering just my last weekend in South Africa, for completeness. In other news, I've gone back and added a few pictures to the previous travelogues.

After my week and a half in Cape Town (and surrounding area), I decided to spend my last weekend elsewhere: WINE COUNTRY. Stellenbosch is a bit more than an hour outside from Cape Town, and is one of the larger towns in South Africa's wine country. I am, of course, a big fan of wine. So last Saturday, I took a tour run by my hostel, which drove me (and some others) to four separate wineries, each of which gave us tastes of 5 or 6 wines. This would be a grand total of 20, but since I was with a group, we also traded some sips with each other - plus, at one winery, I was being indecisive and the woman who gave out samples was kind enough to give me an extra two (small) tastes. At one location, we also had a cheese tasting (ALWAYS fun). So over the course of the day, I bought one very tasty red (Shiraz, from Fairview winery), one excellent sauvignon blanc (from Boschendal - yes, one of the wineries was in fact the location of the conference dinner, but since I really liked the sauvignon blanc we had that night I was happy I could go back and purchase it.) And of course, I'd previously bought a dessert wine at Delheim (which we stopped at during the after-conference tour). So I brought home a total of one red, one white, and one dessert wine, all three of which are delicious!

Regarding the rest of my time in Stellenbosch, I spent most of Friday just wandering around the town (in and out of shops, a local botanical garden, and finished with a delicious dinner from a culinary arts school's restaurant). On Sunday, I rented a bike and biked 10 km (each way) to Jonkershoek Nature Reserve, a nice little park where I found a picnic table and had a nice little spread (previously purchased for this very purpose). Just some cheese, crackers, figs, juice, and zebra pate. Yes, you read that right, ZEBRA PATE. I found this at an AWESOME little store in Stellenbosch (which allowed no pictures inside, alas) called Oom Samie Se Winkel (Uncle Samie's Store), which had the most amazing things. Like ostrich and peacock feathers, all sorts of spices, wine and odd spirits, random and obscure food items (like zebra pate), old books, and a full miscellany of old fashioned trinkets and oddities. If you ever go to Stellenbosch, go to this shop, seriously. Anyways, the zebra pate was interesting, but didn't have a strong taste (I could kind of imagine it was a little horse-ish, from the one time I tried horse in Europe, but I might have been imagining it, because honestly, it wasn't very high quality pate). So know I can say I've eaten zebra! But I had a nice picnic in general, before biking back. On my bike trip TO the nature reserve, I was cursing my lack of fitness, because it felt like rather a struggle at times. It wasn't until I biked back, however, that I realized that the REASON I was having so much difficulty on the way there was that it had been almost entirely uphill - even the parts that seemed flat were gently sloping up. There were some exceptions, but it was only REALLY downhill close to the park itself, when I was already tired. So on the way back, the uphill parts were the first thing (when I was well rested) and the rest was generally down, and so the trip back was an absolute breeze and felt like it took no time whatsoever! I spent the rest of the afternoon by (and in) the pool at the hostel, enjoying the sun for a bit more before returning to chilly New York the next day.

Not much else, my flights back to the United States were uneventful, taking 24 hours including the 4 hour layover in Munich (NOT enough time to leave and come back again). Just read, slept, watched movies. I was again impressed that Lufthansa gives complementary wine and after-dinner drinks to folks during the in-flight dinner. Watched "Wreck-it-Ralph" (I'd seen it in theaters, and enjoyed it a lot, REALLY fun movie) and Pretty Woman, read and played some games on my iPad mini. Normal in-flight stuff. I'm still not quite on my normal sleep/eating schedule, even 3 days after getting back to NY, but a 7 hour time difference IS a bit to adjust to - and it just means I'm waking up early and going to bed a bit early, which, while unusual for ME, means I'm actually on many people normal Eastern Standard Time schedules, where as usually, I feel I'm somewhere on like Mountain Time. So, back to normal now, and back to work!

Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

Travelogue: A Week of Cape Town Tourism

More snippets!

SALT/Sutherland tour: The after conference tour was an outing to the site of SALT and other telescopes, in the Sutherlands, a few hours north. Such an AMAZING view of the sky, I don't remember the last time I had a sky that nice - there was no moon out (always a bonus) and although the clouds had been hovering about all day, they disappeared as night fell. Plus, we were at a telescope, near no towns, and with all local lights off, so there was pretty much minimal light pollution. So I was able to identify the LMC, SMC, Milky Way, Southern Cross Orion (Upside down), the Pleiades (again, oriented the wrong way round), a satellite, and a lightning storm way to the North. Plus, honestly just enjoyed laying on my back on the ground staring up for a while. The telescope tour was also pretty cool, got to see the giant mirrors and domes moving about.

Peninsula tour: I purchased an all day bus tour to see the peninsula - it seemed like a good idea, as the only way to get down there is by tour bus or car rental, and I'm NOT ready to rent a car for myself for a day, and drive on the wrong side of the road. This was much simpler. So we went to Hout Bay, and took a boat ride to a small island where seals flock; then we went to a beach where there are African penguins galore (including, I might add, a few babies, and I happened to chance on a mother lying on an egg, which I was happily able to photograph - AWESOMELY ADORABLE!). This was followed by a drive down the coast, and at one point, we got out and were issued bikes and helmets, and so biked a few kilometers to our lunchen spot. After that, we hit the Cape of Good Hope, where we were able to hike out and about the point, a nice little walk. Throughout, the helpful guide gave background about the area, of course. A nice day indeed.

Climbing Table Mountain:  Of course, I had to hike up the picturesque mountain that provides a backdrop to Cape Town - Table Mountain. I got an early start, arriving at the mountain by 9:30 (Hey, I'm no early bird, that's PLENTY early, considering the bus ride there....). I was a bit paranoid about water (it being a particularly hot day) and thus brought 1.5 liters with me - but realized as I climbed I forgot to bring a snack. However, it didn't take me the trip up the mountain to realize I had more water than was strictly necessary to get to the top, and when another girl (hiking with friends) revealed she was running QUITE low on water, I was happy to offer her some of mine. Which we turned into a trade as she gave me a Cliff Bar she didn't need. But she was so grateful for the water, she bought me a bottle at the top as well - which was unnecessary, but nice of her - I offered my excess water outright with NO offer of trade initially - not having water on a hike like that can be killer. Anyway, at the top I bought a piece of pizza, and ice cream for lunch, then hiked down the back of Table to the botanical gardens on the other side. I also discovered that the way down was a bit more challenging on the way up. It was a more difficult hike in general, and rocky and steep enough that I had to tread quite carefully to prevent slippage. But beautiful. And it ended in the botanical gardens, which I hung around for an additional hour or so until my bus was scheduled to arrive. Very nice, though not as fully in bloom as it might be in other parts of the year.

Sunset: After climbing the mountain, the day ended with a bus tour, up Signal Hill, to watch a lovely sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. I admit, it was odd watching the sun set over the Atlantic... that's supposed to be where it RISES! The bus tour also gave commentary about the area - I was particularly amused by two factoids: first, that they were recently delighted when a pair of black eagles returned to nest in the area. Second, a fact stated much later in the tour, was that, alas, the population of a certain rabbit-like (?) creature (small and fuzzy, anyway) has recently been in decline - this is suspected to be due to recent fires, and the return of their natural predator, the black eagle, to the area. You win some, you lose some, I guess!

Round about the City: Whenever you travel, there must be time for some souvenir shopping - little markets abound in this city. Admittedly, most of the souvenirs look the same where-ever you go. But I was able to pick up a few nice items for myself and others. Most notably, and I hope that it gets back to the States in once piece, I got myself an ostrich egg, carved carefully so that you can use it as a lamp, of sorts (if you get a small tea light or similar), with a simple design of a giraffe with the moon and stars upon it. Quite pretty, and very neat, I thought. I also discovered in the harbor (or rather, had been recommended) a food market, with lots of samples, where I had lunch. The rest of the day, I simply wandered around - I had a bus tour pass (I'd gotten a 2-day one, which entitled me to the sunset tour, the busses to and from Table mountain, and a few other tours) which I took around the city, trying to absorb history and local info with - and ended up by the bay in a lovely sea food restaurant where I had a delicious seafood platter for dinner. Yum! By that time, it was too cool to lay on the beach, but I had a table with an ocean view, which was plenty for me at that point.

Safari: On my last day based in Cape Town, I decided to try and actually see some wildlife. While I saw penguins and some ostriches on my peninsula tour, those AREN'T the animals one thinks of, as much, when you think of Africa. So I booked a tour to a local game reserve (well, 2 hours away, but they provide transport), where they give different sorts of animals a lot of space to run around in. Not a fully free park type area - the lions, for example, are in a separate (large) enclosure and are NOT fed live prey - but sufficiently large that they can't guarantee you see any particular animal - we didn't see the leopards, for example (which do feed on the springbok running wild), as they were up in the hills somewhere and tend to stay away from the jeeps in which people take tours. However, I did see 2 elephants, many zebras, ostriches, rhinos, water buffello, wildebeests, springbok, eland (a type of antelope), lions (in the separate enclosure), and waaaaaay off in the distance, a giraffe one could barely make out. We also stopped by the animal rescue center they hosted, where we saw some encaged animals which they were trying to rehabilitate before releasing - a leopard, two cheetah, three lions, and some decidedly non-local crocodiles that a local farmer had been keeping as pets, before they grew too big. The leopard, for example, had been rescued from a cage hunting factory - people raised big cats so that people could 'hunt' them, after tranq'ing the cats and putting them behind bars (hardly sporting). They're going to release him on the game reserve as soon as he gets a little more used to people (and doesn't actively go after them, as he was NOT treated well), to mate with the two females they already have. A really interesting experience overall, and the animals were all gorgeous and super cool.

Travelogue: Random Moments from Conference Week

Cheetah Encounter: Sunday afternoon, heading towards the harbor, I was walking with a few other people and we decided to take a bit of a shortcut, that they had taken earlier. It was early enough in the week that we didn't actually know the long way around, in fact - I was just following the crowd. But our way was blocked off, by, of all things, a Cheetah. Yes, there was a live cheetah blocking our path. Sitting on a table, on a leash, held by 2 handlers, looking quite bored, and possibly tranquilized somewhat. Apparently there was another conference going on, and they had a live cheetah as some sort of entertainment, and they were holding an event right in the hotel plaza where we wanted to cut. They eventually let us by, holding the cheetah back, but I got within about 2 meters of it. NOT what I expected to encounter in the Cape Town harbor...

Kicked out of the Aquarium: The conference reception was held Sunday evening at the aquarium in the harbor, and we had a great open view into the shark tank, and around the lobby. There was also a set of unlocked doors that led into the rest of the building. So I, and several other astronomers including my advisor, naturally wanted to explore the rest of the aquarium. And it was super cool - the lights were all dim, including in most of the tanks, and we could wander around the floor looking at giant crabs, jellyfish tanks, and so on. Until we were informed that no... we weren't actually supposed to be in there. Oops! Who knew a closed door meant "do not enter"?

Local Cuisine: There has been a surprising lack of distinct South African cuisine around here, though I've had a few things that are apparently local. The dried fish that I've mentioned, a couple desserts (a gingery pudding, brandy sticks), something called Bobotie, which is like a shepherd pie only with a egg custard top. Probably the most different thing I've tried, however, is a local meat that has popped up several places. It's generally not cooked in any particular style, but the meat itself is local: Springbok. I'd never HEARD of springbok, so naturally I ordered it at first opportunity. Its a (very cute) type of antelope, which are very common in the area. I haven't seen any live ones, but they're pretty tasty. The meat is a little tough, so they tend to be braised or roasted for long periods of time. Kind of like a tough venison, is the closest taste I can describe. Not bad, certainly worth a try. Hopefully I'll find some other local cuisine soon - there are some local curries, for example, which I've been wanting to try... but haven't found any place that serves them.

Robben Island

Robben Island: Of course, I had to go for a bit of the historical side of Cape Town and South Africa, definitely a region with a lot of it. Wednesday afternoon was given off to all of us, and we were given the option to take a tour of Robbin island, the prison island where Nelson Mandela (and other political prisoners) were incarcerated. This was a boat ride across the water to the island, followed by a bus tour around it: stopping at a scenic overlook where we had a great view of the city and Table Mountain, one of the prison yards, the quarry where people were doing their hard labor (as well as secretly teaching and talking with each other). And finally, one of the ex-prisoners there gave us a tour of the prison itself, pointing out Nelson Mandela's cell and the garden where he hid his writings, and telling us about details of prison life (for example, that your food rations depended on your skin color/ethnicity). Overall, a very interesting trip.

Countryside in the Winelands

Boschendal: For the conference dinner, we went out about an hour outside the city to the wine country, to the vineyard/restaurant Boschendal.  Beautiful countryside, lots of tasty food, and some VERY excellent sauvignon blanc  - I may have to buy some at some point before I leave, if I see it again. But most awesome of all - I hadn't actually thought much about what kind of sky I would see in the south as far as specifics go. I don't know the southern sky very well at all, in fact, so I just thought "oh, I'll learn some southern constellations" and didn't think much more about it. We'd been to tour the SAOO (South African Optical Observatory), but we had to leave before it got truly dark, and that was much closer to the city anyway. But when we went to Boschendal - that's over an hour outside Cape Town, so you could actually see some LOVELY night sky - the Milky Way, for one thing, which is a baseline for how good a sky you've got - if you can see that, it's got to be a pretty decent sky (at least, that is what I think, having lived in NYC and Baltimore). But I ALSO discovered how Large and Cloud-like the Large Magellanic Cloud actually IS. It hadn't crossed my mind, but of course, it IS in the southern sky, and it was known before there were actual telescopes, so it's quite visible by eye down here on a sufficiently dark night. It had to be pointed out to me, because it is very easily be mistaken for a cloud, but it was a little taller and at least 3 times as wide as the full moon would be (though happily it was a moonless night). It's undoubtedly even larger on a darker night, as it gets even more diffuse around the edges. Super cool. I also had some other constellations pointed out to me, most notably the southern cross. I commented it looked more like a small square than a cross (since I'm used to the northern one, which is quite a bit larger and has a central star which serves as a crossing point), but I can pick that one out now. The only constellation I could recognize myself was Orion, which was upside down to what I'm used to seeing! This weekend I'm going to be going on an after-conference tour to SALT (South African Large Telescope) in the Sutherlands, where I hope to see even more of the southern sky, maybe even the SMALL Magellanic Cloud. It will be a lot further from the city, so I have high hopes for a clear and dark night sky.

Actual Astronomy: Of course, I'm at this conference for a reason, not just to play tourist. It's the first all-novae conference in a decade - one of a series, this is the 4th such conference in ~40 years. I'm meeting scientists from around the world, all of whom work on the same type of object that I do. I'm introducing myself and my work to the community, meeting people who may become future collaborators, exchanging ideas, and absorbing all the science I can. And of course, it's my first international conference - I gave my first ever talk at a conference, on radio observations of the nova V1723 Aql, which seemed to go pretty well. I even got several compliments on it! Certainly an interesting topic (in my completely unbiased opinion!). This is an object which by all appearances, when it first went off in 2010, was a completely typical classical nova (at least in optical observations). In fact, the reason our group (see blog post "The Astronomer's Day On") started observing it was in the hopes of getting a good "baseline" for radio behavior. While the late time observations fit predictions pretty well, there was an early time 'bump' in the light curve (here this means the brightness of the nova over time, when observed in radio at various frequencies) which one can't explain at all with the simple model. So my talk described our speculation about the nature of the bump, in addition to the late time fitting to models which estimates the total ejecta mass and showing off our observations in general. Our radio group had quite a good showing at this meeting, and in fact I met people who I've been collaborating with but hadn't physically met before. In addition, I got to talk to many new people, from people whose papers I have read, to those working on topics I didn't know much about at all. About 90 people, from 22 countries, were in attendance; the various venues, activities, and schedules were all well organized; and the talks were by and large quite interesting - all in all, a very good conference!

Me, giving my talk (taken by Allen Shafter!)