Travelogue: Brussels and Prague

Benson and I are currently bopping around Europe for a couple weeks before he goes to a string of conferences. We are having a lovely time, and I thought I'd give a summary of our trip so far.

Our first major stop was Prague, but we deliberately chose a flight with a nine hour layover in Brussels, Belgium, so that we could explore the city for the day. After the pains of customs, we took a train into the city, and set out exploring. With only about 5-6 hours actually available (since we had to return to the airport to go through security again) we had carefully planned out our top priorities in Belgium. Which is why throughout the day, we went to six different chocolate shops, drank three types of beer, ate waffles, mussels, fries and a local rabbit dish, and, of course, saw the Grand Place and the Mannekin Pis.

We were quite systematic: after our first stop for waffles (with chocolate sauce!) we went to Place du Grand Sablon, which has a lot of little chocolatiers. At each we had a salted caramel filled chocolate to establish a baseline between places. We also chose out a few others at each for some variety. Perhaps our favorite place was Mary, which is apparently the favorite of the royal family, as well. But the other places also had really, really good chocolates: Pierre Marcolini had really good quality CHOCOLATE itself, (and had the cocoa beans on display), Leonidas had the most excellent caramels, and Wittamer had these delicious Grand Marniere chocolates. We also went to Neuhaus and Chocopolis, which I also highly recommended!

Our non-chocolate stops were a lot of fun, too. We went to a lovely bar with all sorts of local beers, which were quite nice. Grand Place was beautiful. The pissing kid (as we called him) was.... as expected? I guess? It's this little fountain depicting a child peeing. The church outside of which he resides dresses him up in different outfits on regular basis. It was... weird. The restaurant we went to for lunch was quite tasty. (Our main focus was clearly on food sampling.) At this point, we hadn't really slept in 24 hours due to flights and time direness and while Benson deals with jet lag pretty well, I was exhausted. So I slept for the 3 hour plane ride to Prague after that.

On arriving in Prague, we schlepped through public transport and made our way to our hotel, then, after unpacking, we went to a nearby Czech restaurant for dinner. In general, Czech food is kind of similar to the German food we have had: heavy, an emphasis on meats, and best washed down with a nice glass of Pivo (beer, and the only word of Czech that I learned). The food is quite tasty. The beer was WONDERFUL. I miss the beer already, seriously. All the beer we had in Prague was good. And in general, it was dirt cheap. I'm not just talking about the (admittedly quite good) exchange rate between dollars and Czech crowns, but beer is usually cheaper than soda, or on par. And it's everywhere!

The food was also good - as you might expect, there is a lot of pork, very good sausages. We had some really good stews (venison, pork), potato dumplings, roasted pork, more sausage, pickles, pretzels, an interesting cheese dish whhich consisted of pickled Brie with a spicy pepper salad of sorts (we were skeptical, but it was QUITE good), head cheese, some amazing fresh potato chips at an outdoor marketplace, and a   personal favorite: fried cheese on a bun - like a giant mozzarella stick, with grease in all the right places. We had that about three times as a snack. Almost every day, we went to a a lovely bakery type place called Paul, which had all sorts of goodies for breakfast. There were also a few non-Czech places we tried, on the recommendations of the book "Where Chefs Eat" which gives recommendations for the best restaurants in a large number of major cities. In fact, our first full day in Prague we hit the trifecta of recommendations for Prague: Paul, Limonada, and Itchnusa, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All three were really great - we went to Itchnusa twice, in fact.

Prague itself was also wonderful. In general, the architecture was gorgeous. Benson said that if we took a picture of every gorgeous building in Prague, we'd have the equivalent of a Google street view map. My mother, when telling me about HER trip to Prague, described it as like a fairy tale, and I could see why. It felt very old, and beautiful, and its a city you can very easily travel mostly on foot. Honestly, the cars and the few modern buildings felt very much out of place. We had four whole days of Prague, which was a good amount - we actually planned on doing a day trip out the last day, to a castle an hour away, but that fell through and we just spent our last day exploring some of the smaller museums. These included the gastronomic museum (a history of food prep), an alchemy museum which included going into underground tunnels beneath Prague which led to a secret alchemy lab (and was behind a bookcase, classic!), and the KGB museum, where we got to see lots of the stuff issued to KGB agents and similar items - plus got to hold them and play around with them in some instances!

But there were many nice big ticket items in Prague (besides wandering around enjoying the atmosphere, which took up a good bit of our time, if not most of it). Prague Castle took up most of one day- you could get tickets to tour the various parts of it, from the art gallery, to the towers, to the actual window where the defenestration of Prague took place (such a great word, defenestration), to the Golden Lane where people such as Kafka lived. Really cool! The Prague astronomical clock in the old town square was extremely neat: it gave the location of the sun, the zodiac sign, the phase of the moon, the time, the old Prague time (splitting daylight into twelve even chunks) sunrise and sunset, and date. Every hour, the apostles will spin around while death chimes the hour. We wandered the Jewish quarter and across the Charles Bridge, went to the National Gallery of Art, went to the Vysehrad castle/fortress and the lovely cathedral there, where we happened upon a children's chorus giving a performance. That castle was also lovely for watching the sunset. We ended our trip by going to the Prague State Opera on Saturday, where we saw Carmen, happily with English subtitles as well as Czech.

And from the, it was on to Italy! Where I currently am. We are staying with a friend of Benson's from UCSB, in a town that is about two hours north of Rome, Capodimonte. But more on that in another blog post, I think!

Recommended Procrastination Reading

The internet is a wonderful thing. It connects people all around the world, provides information on any number of subjects, and, perhaps most importantly, provides endless new sources of procrastination. Sites like Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and so on can very easily take up the bulk of a person's day, if one isn't careful. More than that, there is an endless supply of reading material: news, science, fiction, stories, comics, everything. THIS post is going to focus on recreational reading material: the stuff I read purely for entertainment. Not to say I don't read science blogs, or informational data sets, or interesting news articles and whatnot during my free time, but I have an awful fondness for things like webcomics and web fiction. 

One fact about me that I may not have mentioned is that I also have a fondness for listing things. The first thing I do at work is make a to-do list of goals for the day. If I'm stressed, one of the easiest ways to deal with it is to put EVERYTHING that I need/want to do out on paper, sort through it, and break things down step by step. I have a multitude of lists on my computer for long term to-dos (both work projects and for fun), ways to inspire myself, books to read, things to watch, and so on. Even my personal financial spreadsheets are waaaay beyond what most people would keep track of. I really like data, interesting data visualizations, and things of that sort (which serves me well as an observationalist). So I've decided to go through and list some of my favorite things to read online, as recommendations and for personal reference.  I've broken my list down into categories, and then tried to keep them in a vague semblance of order by putting my favorite stories first within any given topic. Of course, all of the stories on the list are ones I like, obviously, and which is exactly my favorite at any given time depends on my mood. Nevertheless. Here are various top recommendations of comics and stories! 

Webcomics and Serials:
I've been a fan of webcomics since my uncle introduced me to a couple of them when I was in 10th grade (I think I still remember the comics he started me off on, too: Acid Reflux, Dominic Deegan, Kevin and Kell, Faux Pas, Suburban Jungle, and Dakota's Ridge). Indeed, I probably now follow what most would consider an excessive amount of webcomics, and have finished or dropped even more, since I've been following and finding webcomics for more than a decade, now. But thank to RSS feeds and other tracking sites, it's easy enough to keep tabs on them. Anyways, this is by no means a complete list of webcomics and web serials, but these are some of my favorites!

Gunnerkrigg Court: The Court and the Forest have long been separated. Antimony Carver joins the court for her schooling. Webcomic, ongoing.
This is my favorite webcomic: just read it, you'll like it. This is a fantastic comic: the pacing and writing are excellent, the story is intriguing and has a great blend of realism and fantasy, and the author clearly knows how to weave a story together. Initially the art is a little 'meh', but over the years it has developed quite a bit; now there are some really gorgeous pages! 

Girl Genius: Agatha lives in a world run by Sparks! Clanks! and Mad Science! Webcomic, ongoing.
A close second on the favorite webcomic front: this steampunk-y webcomic is great fun to read, full of action and adventure, and of course, MAD SCIENCE!

Digger: Wombats, elephant statues, dead gods, and oracular slugs. Webcomic, Complete.
This is a completed story in its own right, and has a lovely blend of humor, adventure, and wombats.

A Girl and her Fed: A girl discovers that she's been placed on a watch list by the government, and is being spied on by a very unusual agent. Though he hasn't picked up on the fact that she lives with the ghost of Benjamin Franklin. A webcomic about civil rights, ghosts, and ethics. Webcomic, ongoing.

XKCD: Individual Comics relating to a myriad of topics, with a focus on science. Webcomic, ongoing.
If you aren't familiar with XKCD, you really should check it out, especially if you tend towards science. These don't follow a story, they're pretty much all one-shots, and have a lot of gems.

Tales of MU: Mackenzie Blaise begins college, determined to make a new start for herself and hoping to ignore her non-human heritage. Web serial, ongoing.
This is an interesting fantasy web serial with some very nice world building (which I tend to enjoy) - the setting is basically a D&D type world which has moved into the modern age - think 1990's. Honestly, some of my favorite chapters are the ones which describe Mackenzie's classes, simply because of the level of detail involved. For the most part it's a kind of a day to day life sort of thing, not so much focused on plot,. There is quite a bit of sex, and some of the early chapters can be a bit off-putting. You can start either at the beginning of Volume 1 or Volume 2 - the second volume is Mackenzie's second year, and the author tried to write such that new readers could pick it up at that point, so you may want to start there.

No Rest for the Wicked: November has been unable to sleep since the moon disappeared, so she goes forth to seek her fortune, in this fairytale based land. Webcomic, ongoing.
Although slow to update, this story has very interesting takes on a number of famous fairy tales, including the Princess and the Pea, Little Red Riding Hood, and Puss in Boots.

Mixed Myth: Keeva, half-goblin, half-elf, is being chased for something that she doesn't even know she possesses. Fantasy. Webcomic, complete.

Abstruse Goose: Individual comics, with science focus. Webcomic, ongoing.
This is another good set of comics for those with a science focus.

A Miracle of Science: Benjamin's job is to track down and subdue people affected by Science Related Memnic Disorder (more commonly known as Mad Scientists), and in pursuit of his latest quarry, he must work with an envoy from the enigmatic Mars. Webcomic, complete.

Hyperbole and a Half: A highly entertaining mix between a blog and stories told with MS Paint. Blog, ongoing.

Order of the Stick: An adventuring party and their ongoing quest for gold, XP, and justice! D&D based. Webcomic, ongoing.


Fanfiction:
One of my guilty pleasures is fan-fiction. Yes, I know, I know; a lot of it out there is really bad, or really smutty, or otherwise terrible --- I fully admit this. But some of it is written well, and it can be a lot of fun. 
I'm particularly partial to fanfiction based on the Harry Potter series (which I love) and that which is based on Sherlock Holmes, particularly the BBC version. So I've broken fanfiction into those catagories, with Crossovers between works and non Harry Potter or Sherlock fanfiction falling under "Miscellaneous". Most of these fictions can probably be read with just a passing familiarity for the original works, though there are definite spoilers in some.

Harry Potter:
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Harry is a rationalist: he was raised in a loving environment by his Aunt Petunia, her husband (an Oxford Professor), and a steady diet of science and science fiction/fantasy books. When he gets his Hogwarts letter, he decides to claim the magical world in the name of SCIENCE! Work in Progress. 

This fic ALWAYS makes the number one spot on my list - it is amazing. It is well written, scientifically minded, interesting, and well thought out. If you like either science OR Harry Potter, you should really check this out. It's written such that you don't actually have to have read the books, but the author does poke fun at, reference, and keep some of the plot-relevant points from the originals. And you can't beat trying to understand magic with the scientific method. [You'll also find a couple other fics by this author under "Miscellaneous."]

Harry Potter and the Natural Twenty: An 11-year old wizard named Milo is summoned across the planes from a distant land: one in which people have hit-points, there are a limited number of spell slots per day, and a critical hit can make all the difference. Despite his strange magic, he soon enrolls in Hogwarts and befriends Harry Potter. Work in Progress.

This fic is a lot of fun: D&D players will particularly enjoy it. The author even keeps a fairly up to day character sheet for Milo, keeping track of his spells and stats.

Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past: The Battle of Hogwarts did not go well at all... so Harry casts a desperate spell to merge with his 11-year old self, and re-do Hogwarts with advanced knowledge. Work in Progress.

Getting the Hang of Thursdays: After a catastrophic accident in potions class, Severus Snape finds the day repeating itself, always resulting in the death of Hermione Granger. Complete.
This story has two possible endings, so make sure you refresh the last page to get both.

The Prince of the Dark Kingdom: Voldemort won, all those years ago, and currently rules over Great Britain. Harry discovers his wizardry and enrolls into Hogwarts, and soon catches the eye of the country's leader. Work in Progress.

Sherlock (BBC):
You'll note I list a fair amount of Sherlock Holmes fanfiction here - I really enjoy the BBC TV series, Sherlock, which is frustrating because there are only 6 episodes out, and they still haven't announced when the next season will be coming out. So lately, I've been glutting myself on Sherlock fanfiction in order to stave off my hunger pangs for the new season. It's sort of working, but needless to say, I'm really looking forwards to season 3, which is currently in production. 

The Googe Street Gambit: Bored at a crime-scene, John and Lestrade play a quick game of Mornington Crescent, to Sherlock's confusion. A short one-shot, complete.
A really funny short story, though you should probably be familiar with the game Mornington Crescent.

The Road Trip Series: Sherlock, John, and Lestrade need to travel 12 hours in a car together in order to get to a crime scene outside of the city. This goes about as well as you would expect. Complete.

Wee Doctor: While pursuing a mad scientist, John is hit by a gun which rips him out of time, and finds himself as an 8-year old child in a world where he never existed. Work in Progress.

The Green Blade: Sherlock and John investigate a string of murders by a serial killer. However, due to some recent events, Sherlock's credit with the Yard is at an all time low. Complete.

Performance in a Leading Role: Sherlock and John are actors, who meet (and fall in love) on a movie shoot. Complete.

Love, Thieves, Fear: After John is shot in Afghanistan, he finds he can talk to ghosts. He tries to ignore this, until he meets someone who has the same ability. Complete.

A Week is just Seven Days, isn't it?: Mycroft asks John to go back to Afghanistan for a week to investigate some issues for him, which means leaving Sherlock alone in London for a week. Nothing that bad can happen in a week, right?  Complete.

A Slip of the Finger: While still in school, John Watson accidentally sends a text to a wrong number: namely, the phone of Sherlock Holmes. A series of texts and phone calls as their relationship evolves. Work In Progress.

Midnight Blue Serenity: Sherlock and John investigate a series of murders by going undercover as a bartender and bouncer at a local club. Work in Progress. 

In Which John is a Cuddly BAMF Assassin: John is an assassin and Sherlock is trying to track him down. But John tracks down Sherlock first --- to ask him on a date. A short one-shot, complete.

Sometimes Family is the Most Terrifying part of the Fairy Tale: Sherlock takes John home to meet his family, and doesn't notice that Mummy doesn't like the doctor at all. Work in progress.

The Flat of Two Serial Killers: Breaking into 221B is not the best decision ever. Short one-shot, complete.

A Completely Different Untitled Police Force John (and Sequel): Sherlock meets John Watson when the doctor starts working forensics at crime scenes, and falls in love at first sight read-through of forensics report. Short, complete.

Letter of the Lore: Sherlock is Faery-blooded and bound by the rules of the Fae. A short one-shot, complete.

Knock Knock: Sherlock deletes most useless trivia, and in some cases, the results can be extremely amusing. Short one-shot, complete.

Long Ago and Far Away: Alternate universe which takes place around WWII. Sherlock and John romance. Complete.

On Feathers and Bacon Sandwiches: John Watson was killed when he was hit in the shoulder in Afghanistan, but conveniently, a demon was able to step in and use his body, anyway. And being a demon is an advantage when you live with Sherlock Holmes. Complete.

Semper Fedelis: John and Anthea (Mycroft's assistant), are framed for betraying their partners (Sherlock and Mycroft) and are forced to go on the run to clear their names. Complete.

Miscellaneous/Crossovers:
A Study in Emerald: Sherlock Holmes/H.P. Lovecraft, written by Neil Gaiman. Based on "A Study in Scarlet," this is a detective story set in a Lovecraftian Victorian England. Short story, complete.
This might be stretching what counts as "fan fiction," since this is published in an actual book somewhere, as well as being available for free online.  But I'm already a huge fan of Neil Gaiman (who wrote, amongst other things, the Sandman comics, Neverwhere, Stardust, Coraline, American Gods, and other pieces of awesomeness), and this story is amazing, so I don't care.

Trust in God, or the Riddle of Kyon: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Kyon and Haruhi are graduating, which makes Kyon wonder what is going to happen next. So he comes to an important decision. Complete.
This is my head-canon for how this anime should end when everyone graduates high school. Note that this and "the Finale of the Ultimate-Meta-Mega Crossover" (below) are by Eliezer Yudkowsky, who ALSO writes Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (see Harry Potter Fanfiction list above). I'm a big fan of his work, in general - his other writings are also definitely worth checking out.

Friendship is Optimal: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. My Little Pony executives put out a new game, with an A.I. version of Princess Celestia running it. Only, she's truly a VERY advanced AI. Complete.

I don't even watch My Little Pony, but this is extremely well done, and you don't need to know much more than the bare essentials of MLP at all to enjoy it. In fact, this fic is actually one of the more terrifying things I've read.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc: Sherlock/Addams Family Crossover. On his mother's side, John Watson's family have some unusual traits and abilities. We see his life growing up, including visits to his extended family, the Addams, and eventually see when he moves in with Sherlock and tries to keep his odder quirks under wraps. Complete.

Loss of Flesh and Soul: Sherlock/Silence of the Lambs/Red Dragon Crossover. Sherlock was a psychologist and a serial killer, put behind bars by D.I. John Watson. But after some copy-cat crimes, the police want Sherlock's help in catching another serial killer. Work in Progress.

I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You:  Sherlock/Good Omens crossover. Sherlock is a Demon, Mycroft is an angel, and John is just John. Short one-shot, complete.

The Magic of Deduction: Sherlock/Harry Potter Crossover. John is in Hufflepuff, Sherlock is in Slytherin. Friendship, love, and mysteries over 7 years at Hogwarts. Complete.

Stardust: Sherlock/Hunger Games Crossover. For the 74th Hunger games, John is selected in District 12 and Sherlock is selected in District 8. Complete.

The Finale of the Ultimate-Meta-Mega Crossover: Fire Upon the Deep/Permutation City/Miles Vorkosigan/Suzumiya Haruhi/Sherlock Holmes/Doctor Who/Star Trek/Hitchhikers Guide/Alice in Wonderland/Disk World/Matrix/Ah! My Goddess!/Monty Python/[Error: Overflow]. Short, complete.
So.... the list above where I list the stories this crosses over... I haven't actually read the first two items, and after that, I just listed some --- NOT all --- of the works that the story crosses over with that I'm FAMILIAR WITH. There are many crossover works mentioned in the story that are things I'm NOT familiar with; indeed, there may be more that I haven't read/seen then that I have. This is not important, nor is it the point. The point is that this story is a mere two chapters long, and not only makes this work, but it gives a reasonable explanation for why this is all happening in the end. Yes, really.

And I can think of nothing else online that would be better to end on then that, so until next time, happy procrastinating!

The BEST Sandwich!

One of my favorite appliances in my kitchen is my bread machine. How often I use it varies wildly: I'll use it regularly for 2 weeks, then forget about it for a month and a half. For example: prior to last week, I hadn't used it since late February. However, last week I volunteered to bring in coffee-snack for the department (which we have every Monday and Thursday), and whenever I do this, I usually make some sort of snack (quiche on Monday, cheese cake squares on Thursday) and round it off with a loaf of fresh baked bread (peanut butter bread, pesto bread). This always works out well, because not only is home-made bread delicious, but most bread machines (including mine) have a delay bake setting, which allows you to program exactly WHEN your bread is going to finish. Which means I can bring in bread that is basically right out of the oven. Which is a treat for the gods. In addition to the two loaves I made last week, I made an additional loaf for myself this past Wednesday, and plan on making home-made pizza dough over the weekend! (Because home-made pizza is ALSO a delicious treat.)

I thought I'd include a couple of my favorite bread machine recipes here, for reference, since I'm particularly fond of the pesto bread and pizza dough recipes; and a good solid recipe for white (French) bread is very nice to have! These don't even require additional directions, since the nice thing about bread machines is you just dump all the ingredients in, press the proper setting and adjust the delay time if you want it, and press go. And then, X hours later, POOF! Delicious bread! (Or dough.) If you do not have a bread machine, I'd highly recommend getting one. They're generally not too hard to pick up cheaply, since they often show up in thrift shops: people get them, then don't use them and don't want them cluttering up their kitchens. Mine was from a yard sale, actually, and cost about $20. Worth it. While I don't make bread as regularly as I could, I feel I get good use out of mine. (Not as good as my aunt, though, who makes a loaf once or twice a week instead of buying bread!) I actually have a bread-machine cookbook, so I'm always trying new recipes for bread, but these are probably the recipes that I make the most. For the bread, I give both the proportions for a 1.5 lb loaf and a 2 lb loaf. Also note that I don't actually bother with bread flour, for the most part, though it is better to use it if you have it.

White French Bread (use regular or french setting)

Bacon-Toasted French Bread (see below)

1c.+2tbs  1+1/3      cups         Warm water
1              2             tbs           Vegetable Oil
1.5           2             tbs           Sugar
1              1.5          tsp           Salt
3+1/4       4            cups         Bread flour
1+1/4       1+1/4     tsp            Active dry yeast

Swiss Beer Bread (use regular setting)

1              1+1/4      cups         Beer 

                                               (room temperature)

1/2           2/3          cups         Shredded swiss 

                                              (or chedder!)

1.5           2             tbs           Vegetable Oil

1.5           2             tsp           Sugar

1.25         1.5          tsp           Salt

Swiss Beer Bread

3+1/3       3+3/4     cups         Bread flour

2+1/4       2+1/4     tsp            Active dry yeast

Pesto Bread (use regular setting)
1 cup       1cup+2tbs               Warm water
1/3           1/2          cups         Basil Pesto
1.5           2             tbs           Sugar
1              1.5          tsp           Salt
3+1/3       4            cups         Bread flour
2              2+1/4     tsp            Active dry yeast

(I just buy basil pesto, but you can make it yourself, of course!)

Garlic-Crust Pizza Dough (use dough setting) (found on all-recipes)

6 oz warm water

Nothing beats homemade pizza!

2 tbs olive oil       

3 cloves minced garlic

2 cups bread flour

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp yeast

In the case of the pizza dough, I do need to add a little more. Preheat the oven to 400F. After the dough is complete, remove it from the bread machine and lay it out flat on a cookie sheet (or other large flat bakeable surface) greased with olive oil, and let it rise for about 20 minutes more. After this, you can add tomato sauce, cheese, and whatever toppings and spices you so desire: in the case of the picture above, I added tomato sauce, basil, oregano, garlic salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, mozzerella, sliced garlic, and sausage! Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the crust is nice and browned.

While I'm generally happy to just eat bread and butter (or jam), bread is also a traditional component of that obscure and exotic food, the sandwich. So since I had decent bread around, I decided to make what is pretty much THE best sandwich in the world. I have expressed in several of my posts that Thomas Keller is a fantastic chef (or implied it by extolling his restaurants and cookbooks). So when I say this recipe comes from him, it should not be surprising that I am in love with this sandwich. It's actually just a variation of a simple BLT, with a couple additional elements - namely, it combines the BLT with a fried egg and grilled cheese. I add a slight variation of my own in the way I toast my bread. Keller recommends using a rustic, countrystyle bread for this sandwich, which I highly recommend. But since I had some home-made white bread, I figured that was a reasonable substitute.  I've also found that a nice sour-dough goes very well in this sandwich. The point is, you actually do want some GOOD bread for this sandwich, it's worth it.  Here are the links to the original recipe and a video of Keller making this sandwich. You cannot watch that without your mouth drooling, I swear.



The Best Sandwich EVER!
2 thick slices of good quality bread (today's bread is home-made French)
2 slices of Monterey Jack cheese
4 thick slices of bacon
4 tomato slices
1 tbs mayonnaise (I use/prefer Miracle Whip)
2 slices good lettuce
1 large egg
1 tbs butter (I use bacon fat, instead)
chives (optional, but tasty)
salt, pepper

Gooey cheese melted over toast!

First things first, cooking up the bacon is the time consuming step: cook the bacon until it's nice and crispy (some people prefer less cooked bacon, but in my opinion, crispy is the way to go). Transfer to a plate with some paper towels to drain. Now it is time to construct your sandwich, starting from the base. The original recipe just says to take toast, put mayo on it, then add the cheese on that. Now, what I like to do is to toast the bread in the pan itself, using the bacon grease that you just got from making up the bacon. This infuses your bread with a delicious bacon flavor. So what I do is take both pieces of toast, fry them up with the bacon grease, remove one from the pan and spread with the mayo, then take the other and top with the cheese, turning off the heat, covering the pan, and letting it sit in there until it gets all melty. Then set your cheesy, bacon-y toast aside (this will be the top of your sandwich). Place the bacon, tomato, and the lettuce on the bottom (mayo'ed) piece of toast (be sure to sprinkle a little salt on the tomatoes). Back to the skillet, melt some butter (or more bacon fat) in the pan, and fry your egg over moderate heat - you really really want the egg to still be runny, here! Slide the egg over onto the sandwich (sprinkling it with a bit of salt, pepper, and chives if you desire; then top the sandwich with the melty cheesy slice of toast). Now, when you cut the whole thing in half, you have a gooey, delicious, runny egg yolk all over your sandwich. Which is just AMAZING. Look at that thing, it's just gorgeous!

Beautiful!

Random Acts of Whimsy

Around 4:00 today, it was absolutely down-pouring. Thunder and lightening off in the distance, close enough to make an impact; absolute summer thunderstorm, the kind I loved watching from the porch as a kid. I was at the office, not-working. I'd been working earlier, of course, but had hit that afternoon slump where your brain doesn't really feel like functioning anymore, so you either need to do something mindlessly productive, get coffee, or give up. I looked out the window, and watched the rain for a while, laughed with officemates about this and that, and idly wondered how bad it really was outside.

I work on the 13th floor on a 14 floor building. The astronomy and physics building. We have a dome on the roof and multiple telescopes - all the grad students know where the keys are for the roof, and are free to get them at anytime in case they fancy a bout of star-gazing. So I thought... I could check this out. I could just stick my head out, see what it's like out there. So I got up, went upstairs, and grabbed the keys. Went to the roof. Took off my sandals, rolled up my jean legs a bit, and walked outside. It was POURING. I could tell immediately if I stood outside too long, I'd be absolutely drenched, and I'd be dripping over the office. Or....

I rushed back to my office, packed up my things, and ran home through the pouring rain to drop off my computer, my bag, and everything except my keys.

Two blocks away from where I live is Morningside Park - a lovely place for a run, full of pathways through and around big boulders, trees, and stretches of grass and plants. And there I went, tromping through the rain, laughing and yelling out at the thunder and counting the seconds between lightning and thunder. No one was around - the rain was hard enough that anyone who wasn't already out was staying in, I think. As the rain died down and the storm moved further away, I climbed onto one of the large granite boulders which are scattered around the park, and just sat there/lay on my back for a while. I got some strange looks when people did start walking through the park again, when the rain had stopped, but I was quite content on my boulder - I've always loved mucking about with rocks. I used to have a rock collection, even. Technically, I still do, since it's still sitting in my bedroom in my parents house in Baltimore - I never got rid of it, packrat that I am.

Sitting in the rain is something I haven't done in ages. Not counting 'getting caught in the rain' here - though even including that its been a while for that type of downpour. The last time I specifically remember deliberately going out in the pouring rain... might actually be on my gap year, five years ago. I'm sure - I hope - I've done it since then, just no specific instances springing to mind at this moment, as I write. When I graduated from undergrad, I knew (had known since high school, in fact) I was taking a full year off to travel, to work, to volunteer, and, most importantly, to HIKE. I spent three months hiking on the Appalachian Trail (a 2000+ mile trail spanning Georgia to Maine) - I hiked from Georgia to the half-way point in Pennsylvania, stopping there in preparation for my trip to Japan in July. It was a wonderful trip, and a wonderful year in general, and I'll have to expand on it in another blog entry at some point. But it was an extremely RAINY spring the year I went - when I went through later, I figured out that I saw rain approximately one third of the days I was hiking. Some of those days, just a sprinkle, of course. But other days I was absolutely drenched. Hopefully usually only ME - I kept my gear drier than I was, generally, and my REAL criteria for being drenched was getting my socks soaked through - which only happened three times (yes I counted) throughout those three months. 

The worst rain I remember hit one afternoon in... early June? Late May? I'd have to look it up, I kept a journal almost obsessively on a day to day basis. Late afternoon. I was hiking with Hellbender (a friend on the trail, everyone had trail names) that day, and it just CAME DOWN, a three mile hike from the shelter we'd been intending to stay. After a while I stopped, told him to go on to the shelter, I was just going to camp where I was and catch up tomorrow, since it was getting late. I'd camped on my own before, that wasn't a worry. But it Just. Kept. Raining. And the place I had chosen didn't exactly have a camp site available, and despite the numerous vegetation, was actually a lot more rocky than it appeared. I couldn't get my tent up. My tarp was doing nothing against the rain, my tent stakes wouldn't stay in the ground (my tent wasn't entirely freestanding, for all that it was light and for all that I loved it). And I was getting more and more wet by the minute, until I finally gave up, threw everything back together and buckled it to the outside of my pack (too wet to go back inside without getting the REST of my gear wet) and grimly set back onto the trail towards the shelter. It was dark by the time I got there, the shelter itself was packed, and most people were in their bags, sleeping. But Hellbender had saved me a spot and waited up for me, as he realized that the rain was not letting up. I met a lot of good people that year, and made good friends. When I got off the trail after three months, most other people kept hiking on to do a complete thru-hike. So the last time I remember deliberately going out in the pouring rain was about a month after I got off trail - I went outside and stood there for a while and missed the trail and my 'fellowship.' I should do things like that more often.. randomly going outside in the rain, or dancing around my apartment singing to my favorite album, or even just going downtown someplace and trying a new restaurant on my own, for fun. Life is better with a bit of whimsy.

Summer Plans Confirmed!

So this is just a quick blog post in which I'm REALLY excited for my summer plans, which just came together over the weekend, in chronologically reversed order. So I wanted to gush about that for a little bit!

Benson is going to two conferences this summer, in July: one in Warsaw, Poland, and the other near Barcelona, Spain. I had originally been planning on flying out to California for his graduation in mid-June, but when he invited me to go around Europe with him for a couple weeks, I decided that Europa took priority over Cali. This weekend, we spent a large chunk of Saturday discussing our plans and booking flights. Since travel within Europe itself is relatively inexpensive, and we knew we wanted to take 2 weeks to travel, the whole continent was pretty much our oyster. Which turned out to be a little problematic, since we both love to travel and want to go EVERYWHERE, eventually.

Our planning went in reverse: We knew we wanted to end in Warsaw, of course, since that is where the first conference is and therefore where I must end my trip. I'm going to actually be there for the first few days of the conference, probably looking around Warsaw on my own while Benson does conference-y things. I've never been to Poland before, and Warsaw should be really interesting. Just prior to the conference, we'll be in Italy: a friend of Benson has family near Rome, and invited us to stay for the week before the conference. I've been to Rome before - when I was in undergrad, my family took a summer and spent 5 weeks in Europe, two of which were traveling around Italy and the other three in France. Rome was one of the stops we went to, so I don't feel the need to do ALL THE THINGS in Rome or nearby... it will be nice to explore smaller towns and take a more relaxed trip, and with people who know the area - not to mentioned home cooked Italian meals!

Prague was the last place we settled on - as I said, since travel is cheap within Europa, we could have gone pretty much anywhere before heading to Italy and then Poland. [An amusing side note: when Benson was describing this trip to his parents, they were apparently under the misapprehension that the conference was in PORTLAND instead of POLAND. A slight difference there...] Anyway, Prague was actually one of the places we had been thinking about before we got the Italy invitation, since it was within reasonable distance to Warsaw by train. So after about an hour discussion of all the awesome places to go in Europe, we kind of defaulted back to Prague on the basis that while there were many we want to go, most of them we'd want to spend more time than available (Istanbul, Greece, and Norway were dismissed for these reasons, for example, since although those are all trips we've been wanting to do for a while, none of them could be done justice in only 5-6 days). My parents have been to Prague, and they highly recommended it: they thought it was fantastic, like a fairy tale city with great music and culture.

So once Europe was worked out, we just had to figure out if we were doing anything prior. In order to see friends, not to mention so that we can take the same trans-continental flight, Benson is going to be in NYC for a few days prior to this vacation. Now, Benson very recently defended his dissertation and received his PhD in Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He'll be going to Cambridge, England, for a three year post doc starting next October. This, of course, is cause for great celebration.

Now, I did get Benson a present for graduating when I was out there over spring break: whiskey! Benson is a big fan of whiskey in general - he has been since undergrad. In fact, he was given a list of quality scotches by one of the professors at Brandeis, which he's been studiously(?) working through, trying all varieties. This is known as "Craig's List", after said professor. Education is a wonderful thing. [Indeed, once during a lab class with said professor, Benson was talking to him about scotch, and I had to interrupt, said I, "with a non-whiskey related question."   "You have to get your priorities straight" responded my professor.] We both like whiskey a lot, is the point, though Benson is more into it than I am - I appreciate it, but don't think I'm a connoisseur or anything. Before my 25th birthday we made a point to go out and drink scotch older than we were (25 year old Bowmore) at Angel's Share in NYC (a most excellent speak-easy, with great cocktails and liquor selection). Since then, we've actually managed to replicate this feat with two additional whiskeys, despite our own aging: my dad has a friend who collects whiskeys, and I've received a couple of very small (as in several ounces) bottles of whiskey since, as presents; so we've also tried 27 year old and 29 year old scotches as well, now. Since I wanted a nice, interesting gift for Benson's PhD, something he'd not gotten before, my dad's friend recommended several bottles of scotch that he thought would be good for such an occasion, from which I chose Aberlour A'Bunadh. Which is very nice indeed.

Now, after that somehow lengthy aside on whiskey (not a waste): Although I gave Benson a present for receiving the PhD, we wanted to go to a nice restaurant to celebrate his graduation, as well. I've mentioned before that we're both foodies to a certain extent, and I'm living in New York City. This means we have access to some of the finest restaurants world wide. This is not an exaggeration. Therefore this morning, exactly one month to the day prior to when we wanted our meal (and the first day possible for booking), at 10am sharp (when the booking line opens) I called Per Se. Per Se is a three-Michelin star restaurant. Last year it was number 6 on the worlds Best 100 Restaurants (which was top spot in the USA). You may recall that in February I was able go go to the restaurant on the number 61 spot, in Cape Town. This year Per Se was number 11 (second best in USA, the top being Eleven Madison Park, also in New York, which is the place I plan on going for MY graduation!). It is run by Thomas Keller, who happens to own TWO three-Michelin star restaurants, the other one being The French Laundry, in California. And as regular readers may recall, my most prized cookbooks is The French Laundry, which I have several different recipes chronologued in this blog. Yes, this is Thomas Keller's OTHER three-Michelin star restaurant. Repeat: I called right when the line opened, at 10am sharp, the earliest possible time. I then proceeded to wait on hold for 25 minutes, and, when I got through, there were only three time slots left. So Benson and I are now proudly possess a reservation at what will be the most expensive, exclusive, and hopefully amazing restaurant that we have ever eaten at to date. Benson is literally booking his flight around this restaurant reservation. To say this place is popular is an understatement. To say I'm excited is an understatement. And of course, finally, to say my summer is going to be awesome is hopefully also an understatement!

Watch City Steampunk Festival

Kaila and me in our Steampunk outfits

For undergrad, I attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where I was a double major in Physics and Mathematics. As I've mentioned before, one of my roommates, Kaila, still lives in Waltham while she goes to graduate school in Boston. For the past few years, Waltham has hosted the International Watch City Steampunk Festival every spring, hosted by the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation. The main street of town is converted -  the park plays live music and sets up booths for individual venders, the shops and pubs and restaurants decorate and offer special deals for festival attendants, there is a live parade, and there are all sorts of panels and events all over town.

For those not familiar with steampunk, you can think of it as a particular brand of science fiction, based on 19th century/Victorian age technology: think Jules Verne, Orson Wells, where everything is steam powered and full of gears. An alternate vision of the future that people in the past might have conceived. It's a LOT of fun to dress up and be silly. Waltham used to be a center for industry and manufacturing during that time period, and is particularly known for its watch factory, which inspired the festival's name. So every year, I've enjoyed going back and visiting my old haunts from undergrad while dressed up to the nines. They always host it on Mothers day weekend (to my mom's dismay, but I've been in Baltimore a lot recently and so we celebrated early) so this past weekend I headed up for the festival.

And also, trebuchet demonstrations,
hurling ice into the river!

This festival had a myriad of activities. Panels (like Victorian Technology and the Steampunk Vision, and Waltham and the American Industrial Age), workshops (like Electronics for Minions, and Thrifty Steampunk), lots of ongoing music and shows (like the Dark Follies Circus, a pirate show, belly dancers, a fiddle circle, a one-man band who makes his own very odd musical instruments, and the improv show "To Whom Does That Line Pertain To, Perchance?"), the yearly pub-crawl (woo!), a steampunk themed LARP (live action role playing - lots of running after people with nerf guns and foam swords!), lots of venders (selling corsets and spices and games and trinkets and much more),  and just in general lots of wandering around having fun and looking at other people's costumes. And naturally, for a steampunk festival, I have to have an awesome costume of my own!  A few detail pictures:

Homemade cincher

My cincher also works as a holster

Key necklace

Pocket watch, or rather,
pocket sundial/compass

What I generally wear has developed over the past couple years, adding various elements as I find them - for example, my first year, I wore a skirt I got from my mom, and a different shirt, and I've added a number of accessories. The major pieces of my current outfit have come from various thrift stores - boots, skirt, and shirt. I bought the hat and the necklace at the first festival that I attended a couple years back. My gun (a painted water pistol) is also from my first festival -- I got it for participating in the pub crawl that year (We had to go from bar to bar, fulfilling quests and performing tasks for various characters in order to recover the secret plans. And drinking.) The bag I carry around all day is actually what I usually use as my computer case, which I got as a graduation present for high school and have been using for years, and is a great leather bag with brass fasteners and hooks. And the cincher I made myself, in preparation for the first first festival I attended: I found a pattern online, used buttons from my mother's button jar, and got the fabric from some old curtains I found at a thrift store -- a regular Scarlett O'Hara move, that! Anyway, it all comes together very nicely, I think, and was done relatively inexpensively. Honestly, making up your own outfit is a lot of fun, I highly recommend it if you want to attend this kind of festival, and there is a lot of room for interpretation and personal creativity within the genre. Examples:

A local group set up a working blacksmithery

Behold the mechanical arm!

All in all, it was a pretty awesome weekend, and a great excuse to go up and see Kaila and wander around Waltham again. It's always nice to visit my old favorite spots (like Lizzy's Ice Cream, or the More Than Words bookstore). I'll be going up to Waltham again in about a month, for my fifth(!) year reunion, but I won't get to wander around in a costume then, alas. But there is always next year for that - I'm thinking this summer I may try and mod my own nerf gun... we shall see!

A Few of my Favorite Things

Being a Baltimore girl, originally, my favorite food is crab - specifically, a nice big pile of Chesapeake-caught Blue Crabs steamed with Old Bay seasoning. This spread is, unfortunately, something that is not only seasonable but area specific. However, you can still get decent crab elsewhere in the country - but when I do so, I generally make sure I'm getting the whole crab, or obvious chunks of crab (legs, for example), rather than something that is 'stuffed with crab' - since I've found that unless you are particularly careful about your source, those sorts of dishes end up with more random filling than crab, or even utilize FAKE crab (which is an abomination of culinary arts.) 

And the one dish I avoid like the plague is "Maryland Style Crab Cakes" (when outside of the Chesapeake Bay area, that is, of course I've gotten decent crab cakes in both PA and VA and at home in Maryland). In Baltimore, the best crab cakes are from G&M's (not counting the homemade crab cakes of my Aunt Dot, but those aren't exactly available to everyone!). These crab cakes are the size of your fist, if you happen to have very large hands. They're bigger than my fists, anyway - they're literally half a pound each, and most of that is solid crab. You have huge chunks of backfin falling out of it, they're lovely! There are many other excellent crab cakes in Baltimore, of course, but these are my favorite. My point is, I have high standards for crab cakes. But with only the very rarest of exceptions, I've found crab cakes made elsewhere tend to consist of the barest flakes of crab, held together by massive amounts of something that ISN'T crab. I'm not saying that there aren't any good crab cakes away from home - just that I've gotten tired enough of being disappointed by crab cakes that I've stopped ordering them all together. And when I keep an eye out for other people's crab cakes orders, they generally confirm my impressions. 

You can often tell a crab cake is going to be bad by simply looking at it: if it looks like a firm, smoothish, patty - it's going to be mostly fill and crab flakes; a PROPER crab cake should be mostly crab, with some other stuff that holds it together - hopefully just barely enough other stuff to hold it together - and  the larger chunks of crab meat you can pick out, the better. And I've gone to restaurants, NICE restaurants, which have very good sea food in general and where I really enjoy the food, and seen crab cakes which make me wince just at the sight of them. So I've pretty much given up on LOOKING for decent crab cakes, unless chance favors upon me. I have found, by chance, exactly one place in New York City that has a decent crab cake sandwich - Red 58 has a solid crab cake BLT. I didn't order it the first time I was there, but a friend of mine did. And when I tried a bite I was most pleasantly surprised! I'm not saying its the best crab cake you'll ever have, but it, you know, actually tastes like a crab cake, which means it tastes good. So when we've gone back there for drinks and dinner, I've ordered it ever since. So now, I have one place in New York that I can go for such things. Again, I wouldn't be surprised if there are other places in NYC that have decent crab cakes, and if you know of one, please! Let me know!

When I consider non-crab favorite foods, there has always been one dish which springs to the top of my list. This is my favorite dish that is on my regular meal rotation, and has been for some time. Fettuccine Alfredo is both easy and straightforward to make, and absolutely delicious. Now, healthy? Not so much. My family's nickname for the dish is "heart attack on a plate," which is a fairly accurate descriptor: it's all butter and cream and cheese and deliciousness. It's been one of my favorite dishes for as long as I remember, before I ever even tried crabs, and is pretty much my ultimate comfort food.

Fettuccine Alfredo

1/4 c. (4 tbs) butter

1/2 c. heavy cream (or more, if you wish)

1/8 lb parmesan cheese (at a minimum – I tend to add extra)

Salt

Pepper (fresh ground)

1 lb fettuccini noodles

You can make this with pasta that isn't fettuccine as well, and to be honest, the above picture is technically linguini alfredo. But pasta substitutions are relatively minor - you might need a little more or less of everything to coat pasta variations with different amount of surface area, I guess. Additionally, something related to parmesan cheese, like asiago or romano cheese, are also valid substitutions. I like to buy solid blocks of cheese, then grate off the amount that I need - it tends both to be less expensive, and keep better. Cheese graters are handy things to have! 

Anyways, whatever your noodle choice, cook them as directed until they are tender - they should be more on the undercooked than the overcooked side, since you'll continue heating them as you add the additional ingredients, but cook them to your taste. Strain the noodles and put them in a pot on the stove top. Cut the butter into 1 tbs chunks or so, and mix into the noodles until they are well coated with butter and the butter is melted (this should be done over low heat). Add cream, continuing to mix over low heat - you want to keep mixing the noodles so that nothing scorches. Grind in generous amounts of pepper, to taste. My mother doesn't really like ground pepper, so when I'm making this at home, I always have to just put a little on and add the rest later to my own plate, but when I'm cooking in NYC, I can add all the pepper I like - which is quite a lot. I also tend to be a bit heavy handed with the salt. Next, still on low heat, add in the cheese slowly, and mix well - it should get nice and melty.  . Serve immediately. Add salt and any additional pepper to taste -this means grate fresh black pepper generously across your plate, and a nice extra dash of salt, as well!

If everything seems a bit dry, add a bit more heavy cream until it's properly moist. If it's too moist, just add more cheese. I like lots of cheese, so I end up with both a lot of cream AND a lot of cheese - this is not a bad thing. Honestly, I don't really bother to measure out the ingredients anymore since I'm so familiar with this recipe, I just add things in until it looks right. It's a pretty simple recipe, but a delicious one, and definitely one of my favorite things.