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February Highlights

2012-03-10T10:15:00.002-08:00

– Witnessing some more sunset-on-ocean gorgeousness, this time from Coronada Island and La Jolla Cove.

View from Coronado Island

– Disney on Ice: Toy Story 3. Finally, I get to experience the magic that is Disney on Ice. My reaction: mixed. I was very opposed to the spontaneous skating and twirling and dancing around that kept happening and really had no relation to the storyline or plot whatsoever...but fine, these shows aren't meant to be critiqued by cynical 20+ year old adults. Anyway, I liked how they acted out the aliens – pretty clever:

– Hanging out with my mom and pops President's Day weekend :)

– Laying out on the grass on a sunny day (in February!) in Golden Gate Park.

– Watching Dave Chapelle's show at Yoshi's in Oakland. All I had really known about Dave Chapelle up until that point was that he was associated with the whole "F* YOUR COUCH" thing, which I didn't even really find funny, but after seeing him live, and after a lengthy education that involved watching numerous standup routines, I am now enlightened and find him funny. Most of the time.

– Hiking on an overcast-turned-sunny day in Pacifica, CA.

Milagra Ridge Trail

– Being fed by my good friend Jasmin. She recently bought a cookbook and was inspired to start cooking, and dang she does it well. I got to eat cheesy leek brioche toasts, which were topped with bechamel...holy moly so good. I hope I get used frequently as a lab rat.

The dinner party hostess

– Discovering a pizza parlor that I really like: Giorgio's in the Richmond. Comfy corner booths, Christmas lights interwoven in an overhead canopy of (fake) vines, red and white checkered tablecloth, decent bread and butter...the pizza is eh, but the atmosphere – both cheery and intimate – wins me over.

– Seeing my dear friend Rachid, who was visiting from chilly Chicago.

– Finishing off dinner with ice cream from Fenton's Creamery.

– A beautiful hike in Torrey Pines. The day was so perfect that locals were even commenting on how great the weather was, and these are San Diego locals, so that really means something. By the way, there were FLOCKS of dolphins in the water (schools? Pods? Pods.) along the hike...I saw a pair of baby dolphins frolicking together, riding the waves...cute as/cuter than puppies.

View of the Pacific from Torrey Pines

The best things I ate this month:

- Brunch at Salada Cafe, in Pacifica. I accidentally got a scramble with Pecorino cheese, which is apparently made from ewe's milk (as much as I've tried, I cannot, cannot, stomach goat cheese). So I had Ryan's scramble and everything was good again.

Omelete and sheepy scramble + the butteriest toast

- A homemade farro dish with basil, tomatoes, sauteed shiitake mushrooms, and peas. I might post the recipe later. I love farro. I wish everytime I had a plate of rice in front of me, I could snap my fingers and transform it to farro.

- Salad at Goat Hill Pizza in Portero Hill. I'm not a big fan of their pizza but oh my, their salads are so generous and delicious. It comes with cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, artichoke hearts, and basically a giant block of feta.

I think there's about a lb of feta cheese there

- Last but not least, PHIL'S BBQ in San Diego. Holy f***, they are amazing. They're one of the top 10 restaurants in the US, according to Yelp, and what an accurate rating that is. We had corn on the cob, colossal onion rings, beefy ribs, and a pulled pork sandwich.

From left to right: onion rings, beefy shortribs, pulled pork.

I don't really have words for this experience, except that going here led to me googling Phil's BBQ repeatedly the following week, trying to find a recipe for their bbq sauce, and even stalking the man Phil himself, which, if you think about it, has no helpful impact on the situation whatsoever.

I think their onion rings would have to be part of my last meal on earth. Not exaggerating.

The "lost" Milgram experiments

2012-03-03T17:18:00.002-08:00

You've probably heard of the famous Milgram experiment, the one that tested how far participants would go in administering electric shocks to another human, if told to do so by authority figure. If you've taken any intro psych class, you'll have heard of it. But you probably haven't heard about the 20-40 other variants of the experiment, some of which may change your interpretation of the original.

Milgram's Shock Box. Source

A disease spread by doctors

2012-02-12T22:40:00.000-08:00

(I just noticed that I'm jumping between posts on slow cooking pork shoulder to posts on "cadaverous particles." This makes for an appetizing blog)

----

This is a post about a disease spread by doctors, the doctor who discovered how it happened, and the doctors who didn't believe him.

Childbed fever (also known as puerperal fever) is a bacteria infection of the uterus contracted during the birth of a child, an abortion, or miscarriage. It can be deadly – if untreated, it can spread into the bloodstream and cause septicaemia (blood poisoning), which can kill in a matter of hours.

It was common in mid-19th century hospitals and was often fatal, with mortality rates ranging from 10% - 35% (which is 1 in 3 women!). Nobody quite knew the cause of the sickness, just that it seemed to happen most often when it was a doctor who was handling the procedure. Incidences of childbed fever were low when it was a midwife delivering the baby, and almost nonexistent when the woman delivered the baby on her own – even if it was on the streets.

Streptococcus pyogenes (red-stained spheres) is responsible for most cases of severe puerperal fever. Credit: Encylopedia Brittanica

In Europe during that time, maternity institutions were set up to address problems of infanticide of illegitimate children (making them a popular service for prostitutes). They'd offer their services for free; in return, these women would be subjects for training of doctors and midwives.

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January Highlights

2012-02-07T22:30:00.000-08:00

– Watching the Wolf moon (the first full moon in January) rise from the Golden Gate Bridge. It was huge and glowing and appeared perfectly spherical (though it was 95% full at the time I saw it).

– Showing my little brother around my neighborhood (read: force-feeding him all the delicious things that exist within a 7 block radius of where I live *cackle*). He liked the Pirate Store a lot. He bought this shirt.

Charlie eating his cheese scone while a couple friends watch

– Purchasing a candy thermometer. I no longer fear recipes that tell me to heat sugar to extremely precise temperatures, e.g., 248 ℉. It's pretty interesting how just a few degree differences will dictate whether or not heated sugar will have the consistency of fudge, caramel, marshmallows, or brittle.

One of my first experiments: English Toffee

– Purchasing a slow cooker. It is a ceramic tub of magic. In ten hours of applied heat, you can turn chunky tough meat into the tenderest thing that basically shreds itself into your lap at the slightest touch. I love you, slow cooker.

– A weekend getaway in Mendocino for Ryan's birthday. Coastlines, gorgeous sunsets, whales and sea lions, cute little quails cooing while crossing the road...it's a really lovely, quirky, peaceful beach town.

View from Mendocino Headlands State Park

Mendocino sunset

– A quick stop at Gowan's Oak Tree – a little fruit stand along Highway 128 in Philo, CA – to drink their hot freshly-made cider. There were at least 500 blue ribbons hanging on the walls (I think for their apples).

– Staying two nights at a beautiful B&B in Elk. The views there blew my mind. And the breakfast there blew my mind. Think: crab and spinach omelettes/quiche, corn pudding, bread pudding with whiskey bourbon sauce, bottomless mimosas with your choice of grapefruit or orange juice...etc.

Breakfast 1, Round 1. Steaming coffee (and a mimosa!) in the back. Love.

– Discovering the joy of walnut cracking. There is something so satisfying about the weight of a solid walnut cracker and the sound of a walnut cracking...I put it on the same level as bubble wrap.

Walnut brainz

– A very special dinner with Ryan at Quince. :)

– Straining my eyes to find monarchs at Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz, CA. During the winter, the butterflies migrate from the Rocky Mountains to the California coast looking for milder temperatures, and up to 100K settle in the park's eucalyptus grove (though I think the docent mentioned there were only ~3K counted this season). On chilly days when the temperature drops below 60 degrees, the butterflies huddle together for warmth, resembling shingled rooftops; on warmer days, they'll flutter around.

I do not have a DSLR; thus, these are the best I could do.

– Celebrating Chinese New Year with my family. Watching my mom whip up about six dishes (one of which includes homemade dumplings – filling AND dough made from scratch) within an hour. If you need a visual of that...think whirling dervish. With a butcher knife.

My mama, baller cook.

Best things I ate this month:

– Lahori chikkar choley (garbanzo beans cooked in a tomato and onion sauce) at Lahore Kahari.

– Cream biscuits at Citizen's Band. They also had a bacon coffee gravy for the biscuits (pictured on the right), but the cream gravy was f-ing glorious.

– Candy cap mushroom ice cream in Mendocino.

– The house noodles at QQ noodle (酸辣臊子面) in Fremont: sour and spicy pork noodle soup with a hundred flavors I couldn't name.

House special noodles in the center there.

– Almost everything from Quince. In particular, this cute pasta in broth (fancy name: cappelletti paine farm squab and spiced consommé).

Capelletti means "mini hat" and I think that is very fitting.

– BBQ pork noodles with flat rice noodles from King of Thai Noodle. I think it was six bucks. You should get it.

– Breakfast burrito on a sunny patio at Harbor Cafe in Santa Cruz. Mmm.

Filling: Scrambled eggs, hash browns, salsa, cheese, black beans, sour cream

– Vietnamese goodies that my friends brought in celebration of the New Year: beef jerky (khô bò) that was softer, sweeter, and spicier than its American counterpart, and a sliceable log of glutinous rice, filled with mung bean and meat, steamed in a banana leaf (bánh tét). (Note to self: gotta learn how to make these.)

– A sturgeon dish at Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino, CA. It was pan-roasted and came with housemade tagliatelle (now my second favorite pasta), candy cap mushrooms, truffle sauce, and golden beets that I actually liked! They were sweeter and surprisingly, did not taste like dirt.

– Caramel mascarpone mousse that was actually a topping to a dessert, also at Cafe Beaujolais. I'm not a frosting person but I could not stop eating this.

Warm gingerbread with vanilla braised apples and THE MOUSSE!

Sweet and spicy five-spice pork

2012-02-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

A friend promised me that buying a slow cooker would change my life. And so it has. There is nothing more satisfying than walking into the house filled with slow-cooker smells and consuming a meal that took an entire day to cook (but only 15 minutes to prepare).

I made this recipe four times last month. The meat becomes insanely tender stewing in the salty-sweet-spicy marinade for so long. If you haven't tried five-spice powder before – it's very aromatic, a ground mixture of fragrant star anise and fennel, spicy Sichuan peppercorns, and sweet cloves and cinnamon. It's perfect when sweetened with brown sugar and paired with ginger, garlic, and soy sauce.

Recipe is for those hunks of meat at the top...ignore the other things.

Recipe after the jump.
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Candy Cap Mushroom

2012-01-31T23:13:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I went to Mendocino. It was beautiful and I'll write about it later – what I want to talk about right now is this mushroom I encountered there.

Credit: Ron Wolfe

I'd bookmarked a place for us to visit – Frankie's Pizza and Ice Cream Parlor – based on the fact that they had a mushroom flavored ice cream. I fully expected to have a little sample of the mushroom flavor, find it unique but disgusting but worth trying for novelty's sake, and then proceed to buy any of the other standard ice-cream-shop flavors offered.

So, I tried it. And it tasted something like butterscotch, maple syrup, butter pecan – nothing at all like mushroom. I assumed they used incredibly small quantities of it. Anyway, it was so good we ended up getting a cone of it.

I forgot to take a picture of the ice cream itself so here is a picture of an ice cream model for you to enjoy:

Ice cream looks pretty normal no?

I asked the guy at the counter exactly how this ice cream was made, and he told me it was nothing but cream + sugar + mushrooms – and that's all. It was the mushroom that was responsible for the flavor.

Apparently, the type of mushroom they used (Candy Cap) gives off a very distinctive sweet, burnt sugar, maple-syrupish smell. It's faint when the mushrooms are fresh, but becomes incredibly amplified when they're dried, and is used to impart flavor to both savory and sweet foods (like ice cream). They're a dark, burnt orange-brown, and are found under pine and oak trees only in the Bay Area.

I was totally blown away. Never did I really think of mushrooms as a dessert component.

After learning this, we made a beeline to a local health foods shop a block away and bought a little bag of these beauties.

$207/lb. WOW

I plan to make some candy cap mushroom cookies or cake in the near future. They've been in my room a couple days, and already it smells like a maple syrup factory in here. Which I personally greatly enjoy.

That same night, I ordered a sturgeon dish with "wild forest mushrooms" for my dinner entree. While eating my dish, I smelled that same sweet, familiar, buttery maple syrup smell. I thought I was hallucinating, experiencing some delayed aroma response, or that the scent of the mushrooms I had bought earlier had somehow gotten in my clothing. Then I heard the waitress tell someone in the room (with the same dish I ordered) that those were Candy Cap mushrooms on their plate.

Candy caps (rehydrated) along the perimeter of the dish

Twice in a day!

I can't believe it took so long for me to discover these.

December Highlights

2012-01-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

– Dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse. This was the first time in recorded history that I found myself enjoying steak. Rejoicing in steak might be more accurate. Cold champagne, bread and whipped butter, steak, bourbon bread pudding and good company – these are things that make me happy.

I will never forget you, steak. (Ignore the shrimp)

– Walking thirteen miles in one night in San Francisco, stopping by bars, lounges, hotels, dance floors...was crippled in the legs the next day.

– Stopping for extremely potent and delicious rum drinks at Smuggler's Cove. If the Pirates of the Caribbean ride had a bar somewhere hidden in it – that's what Smuggler's Cove would look like.

– A romantic trip to Arizmendi Bakery and the Japanese Tea Garden with a girlfriend. Ending up in Yerba Buena Gardens and peeping-tomming on some children warming up for an ice-skating performance. There was perhaps a 3 year old who was dressed as a fairy skating very tenuously across the ice. Freaking adorable.

Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park – the oldest one in the US.

– Climbing to the top of Westwood Hills Park on an overcast day. You can see downtown Napa from the top.

At the top of Westwood Hills Park

– Indulging in a now-established tradition: holiday drinks at a specific Starbucks in San Francisco. I had the creme brulee latte; R had the peppermint hot cocoa.

– Going to my first wedding. And it was an Indian wedding, at that. There was bhangra, endless drinks and food, a violinist who played Michael Jackson...they know how to have a good time.

Bride walk.

– Visting a gingerbread house big enough to walk into at the Fairmont hotel...which also had a lit Christmas tree of mammoth proportions.

– Roasting chestnuts over...an oven rack. Plus sweet potatoes. I love how roasting concentrates the flavors tenfold and really brings out the natural sweetness of foods.

Never again will I microwave you, sweet potato.

– Making ~~gingerbread men~~ gingerpug. Watching Home Alone while sipping apple cider. What a great movie.

Yeah we follow directions.

– When I told my friends I had never had a traditional holiday meal before, one of them decided to hold a Christmas feast. We had a huge roast, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, rolls with herb butter, HOMEMADE EGGNOG AND MULLED WINE...gah it was so delicious. My friends are the best.

– Drinking champagne and dancing with some of my best girlfriends basically three nights in a row.

Two hours before 2012.

– Being with my family for the few days surrounding Christmas. There is nothing more comfortable than that.

The best things I ate this month:

– Papparadelle with Braised Duck (with Porcini mushrooms, peas, truffle oil) at Sociale. Insanely tender flavorful saucy duck on top of pappardelle, a large, broad, eggy type of fettuccine, and now my favorite kind of pasta. Amazing.

Braised Duck Paparadelle

– Brown sugar ice cream with a ginger swirl at Bi-Rite Creamery. This was my first time ordering something here. I relented after more than a year living basically two blocks away (thinking it'd be overrated), and it completely blew my mind. I also didn't have to wait in line, and it was a Friday (??).

– Filet mignon at Ruth Chris Steakhouse. Doused in butter. See above.

– Freshly baked whole wheat walnut bread at The Liberty Cafe. The homemade raspberry jam to go along with it. And the dark chewy mushrooms that were in my omelette – I have no idea what type they were, but now they're my favorite.

– My mom's homecooked food. Doesn't matter what she makes, I am always able to eat platefuls.

Crispy Chewy Scallion Pancakes

2011-12-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

These are my one of my Chinese carb favorites. They're not like American pancakes per se, which are fluffy and eaten sweet – these are more like a savory, chewy flatbread or roti. They're flaky and come apart in layers, each folded in with oil and a scattering of green onions.

The smell of fried dough and scallions and sesame oil...mmm. Your kitchen will smell amazing.

To get real flakiness, you're technically supposed to use lard, according to the mother. I use oil each time, just cause I'm happy with the texture it produces. May or may not experiment with lard in the future.

Recipe after the jump.

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Favorite scones

2011-12-28T16:43:00.000-08:00

I was not a scone person until this year. I think my first scone must have been some horrible dry and coarse monstrosity, but after some amazing fluffy raspberry homemade ones that a roommate offered me a few months ago, I am no longer hating.

scones, pre-bake

Each bite of these scones from this recipe has a slightly salty, slightly sweet mix of crumbly exterior and tender interior (moistness due to the addition of sour cream). I finished these off with rough turbinado raw sugar, cause I like the crunchiness of the sugar on top.

I want some with chai right now.

Recipe after the jump.

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The Man Behind Elmo

2011-12-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

I may be the last person in the world to learn this, but this man, Kevin Clash, is the muppeteer behind Elmo:

I listened to an interview with Clash, and here are the couple things I found especially interesting:

There's something not quite right about the name of the toy, "Tickle Me Elmo." Clash (who wasn't consulted in the naming of the doll) remarked that Elmo never refers to himself in first person. It should technically be "Tickle Elmo."
Muppeteers have to be fit. When they're on the set, they're covered in dark cloth and rolling around on these ottoman-like contraptions. To be able to pull off all the puppet movements while laying low, they apparently have to go through a regimen of crunches and sit-ups. Great images here.

During the interview, Clash morphed into Elmo a couple times. I don't know if this only happened during that interview, or if it always happened and I just had never noticed it, but when Elmo laughs there's a tiny twinge of a deep, low rasp at the end that is very much Clash's voice.

Roasted Five Spice Chicken

2011-12-22T20:30:00.000-08:00

Ever since I discovered five spice chicken, I've been ordering it like mad at Vietnamese restaurants. To date, it's my favorite meat accompaniment to both pho and vermicelli dishes.

I found and tweaked a recipe, and was very satisfied with the outcome. It's slightly less sweet than the versions at restaurants, but its flavors are much more amplified. I am a huge fan of the spices. The toasted crushed star star anise is crucial – it imparts this really deep smokey sweet flavor that makes me swoon.

Only one piece was left for photographing...we'd eaten the rest :x

Recipe after the jump.

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Death/Life Mask

2011-12-14T00:30:00.000-08:00

Long ago, death masks were a common way to preserve the faces of the deceased. Death masks were made from the faces of royalty and nobility, notable poets and philosophers – Henry VIII, Voltaire, Dante, and so on.

It's highly ironic to me that the face of the CPR dummy was based on a death mask – the death mask of a young woman found drowned in the Seine River in the 1880s. She was called L'inconnue de la Seine – the unknown woman of the Seine.

L'inconnue de la Seine

One of the myths I've come across is that she threw herself into the river after an affair with a married man was uncovered. Nobody really has proof of the real story though.

When she was found, her body was laid out in the street for identification purposes (common practice at the time). She was considered so beautiful that a pathologist at the morgue made a plaster cast of her face, though she was not of nobility or royalty, or anyone famous.

Her death mask — with its "beguiling," "enigmatic" little smile — was beautiful enough to be cast and recast and eventually sold as a fashionable fixture in European homes.

Her mask made it to the living room where a Norweigan toymaker by the name of Asmund Laerdal grew up. This toymaker (whose own son had nearly drowned in the river as a little boy) had been commissioned by an Austrian doctor to create a dummy for people to learn artificial resuscitation. Laerdal happened to look up and see it on display in his parents' living room, and thought it perfect for the face of the now ubiquitous first aid mannequin, CPR Annie.

November Highlights

2011-12-02T14:29:00.001-08:00

– Seeing San Francisco from two new angles:

– Re-watching two of my favorite movies of all time: Pan's Labyrinth and Nightmare Before Christmas.

– Attending a Disney dinner party, where the theme was "kiddie treats with an adult twist." We ate homemade full-size bagel bites, drank Capri Sun, and watched Lion King in Blu-Ray. Somehow, this movie has gotten better since the first time I saw it.

I love Rafiki. I tried not to think about how real-life male baboons beat the sh*t out of female baboons and was able to preserve my warm feelings towards Rafiki.

– Listening to Radiolab live. Hearing two blind men debate the importance of sight. "They told my wife, 'you're lucky, he'll never see you age. You'll always be as young as the last day he saw you.'"

– Kayaking the Loxahatchee River, with its tangled mangrove roots, black water, and fallen palm trees.

– Picking a Christmas tree. I love the heavy evergreen scent in Christmas tree lots.

– For the very first time: mulling wine with cider, cloves, cinammon, brown sugar and star anise.

– Finally satisfying an ongoing caveman craving for a giant turkey leg.

– Watching Cirque du Soleil's Totem. This by far was my favorite act.

The Barber's Pole

2011-11-27T10:51:00.001-08:00

In medieval Europe, surgery was more of a craft than a science. In 1163, when the clergy (who were the "surgeons" of the time) were forbidden to participate in any activities involving bloodshed, their duties were passed to the barber, with his array of sharp tools.

The barbers became known as the "barber surgeons," and would regularly perform bloodletting, dental extractions, minor surgeries, amputations...and haircuts.

Image credit: T. Tauri

The barber's pole was often placed outside shops to signal that the barber there performed bloodletting services.

The red and white stripes represent bloody bandages wrapped around a staff – a staff that a patient would grip during a bloodletting procedure. The top silver cap represents the basin that held leeches; the bottom silver cap represents the basin that would receive the blood of the patient.

It was only in the 18th century that the surgeons formally split from the barber and formed the "Company of Surgeons."

Feijoa, or Pineapple Guava

2011-11-26T23:25:00.001-08:00

Last night, R shared with me feijoa fruit from his cousin's backyard.

You eat these like kiwis: cut in half, and then scoop out the flesh. They were about the size of duck eggs, with a thick and waxy skin.

The insides were smooth in the center, becoming grittier as they neared the perimeter. Both the skin and the flesh smelled and tasted very familiar. It took me a while to land the particular taste...

...which was of Cherry Lip Smackers! Strangely artificial tasting and overly sweet. So much so, that I'm not sure that I would eat these again. Though I can see how these might contribute to an cold mixed juice drink.

Tropical fruit and spice park

2011-11-24T15:20:00.000-08:00

In November 2011 I traveled to South Florida and visited both Fruit & Spice Park and Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens*.

I was hoping to sample more tropical fruits this trip, but only a few varieties were fruiting in mid November. If I visited in July, I would've been there for Mango Madness, where Fairchild offers samples of rarer mango cultivars at the peak of their ripeness.

And if I lived there I'd be able to regularly attend workshops with themes like Ice Cream from Tropical Fruit and Lychee and Longan...it disturbs even me the levels of jealousy I experience when I think about these things I'm missing as a non-South Florida resident.

Anyway, here are several of the more fascinating plants I came across at Fruit & Spice Park:

Ylang ylang
The blossoms are very fragrant, with narrow yellow-green spidery petals. Essential oils derived from the flowers are used in perfumes like Chanel no. 5.

Ylang ylang blossom

Ginger
You know the root, but might not be familiar with the flowers. Squeezing the flowers produces a clear liquid that smells very fresh and fragrant. It's often used to make sweet-smelling lotions and shampoo.

Ginger flowers (picked)

Wild pineapple
Also called the "original pineapple," this plant bears egg-shaped orange fruits that taste exactly like pineapple. It's often planted near fences or under windows because its extremely sharp, deep green leaves that can act as effective barriers.

Wild pineapple

Jackfruit
Certain chewing gum makers came across this fruit, and tried to replicate its taste in Juicy Fruit gum. The fibers were very strong and elastic, but it tasted and smelled like a mix of pineapple, banana, and strawberries.

Jackfruit being cut up for samples

Jackfruit growing on the tree

Egg fruit, or Canistel
Soft and crumbly, with the texture of a cooked egg yolk (hence its name). Tasted like a baked potato crossed with an unripe persimmon, with a lingering chalky aftertaste. Not my favorite, but apparently it's great for ice creams and custards.

Canistel fruit. Photo credit: Carib Fruits

Bay Rum.
Used in men's aftershave/cologne. Leaves smelled exactly like it.

Bay rum leaf

Midnight Horror, or the Broken Bones Plant
A tree that's creepy in a couple ways. When its large leaf stalks wither and fall off the tree, they appear like piles of dried human bones. It's also a night-bloomer, with blossoms that emit a strong and foul-smelling odor that attracts bats, which pollinate it.

Midnight Horror. Look hard to see the elongated seedpods.

African Sausage Tree
Best name for a tree, ever. The fruit are leathery and not really edible for humans, but hippos, baboons, giraffes and other mammals love these.

African Sausage Tree

Antidesma
The little fruits turn from white to red to black as they ripen. When ripe, the fruits are sweet and sour, reminiscent of pomegranates, but with the texture of miniature blueberries.

Antidesma fruits

Gak
These fruit were the size of a large grapefruit, with a spiny exterior and magenta-red insides that have been likened to "human intestines." The red oil from the seed chambers is used as a dye. The mesocarp (yellow flesh) of the fruit is poisonous, but the seeds and red oil surrounding the seeds are edible, though on some accounts not very flavorful, and not worth eating unless for potential nutritional benefit.

Gac fruit, found on the ground

There were some other plants that I encountered – poisonous, hallucinogenic, and crazy in all types of ways – I'll write about those some other time.

* These two parks offer totally different experiences. Here's how I'd describe the difference between the two: Fairchild is like a Whole Foods; Fruit & Spice is like a farmer's market. Fairchild is enormous, its displays are meticulously pruned (walking in their Rainforest section reminded me of the Lost World ride at Universal Studios), its visitors are on the more affluent side, and it's extremely touristy. Fruit & Spice just had a lot more local flavor, felt a lot more intimate, and offered generous samples.

The elusive mangosteen...finally eaten

2011-11-20T16:18:00.001-08:00

It's been said that the mangosteen is the most delicious fruit in the world.

I've heard it multiple times, but it wasn't until a couple months ago that I finally got a chance to form my own opinion.

At the time, I was in the city of Dezhou, in the coastal province of Shandong, which is located on the breast of the metaphorical "Rooster of China." The climate there in the summer is hot and humid, the type where an hour-long walk outdoors will soak your shirts, so I shouldn't have been so surprised to come across a bin of mangosteens in the supermarket.

I took out my camera and was immediately reprimanded for taking this photo:

Supermarket workers in China, I've found, get very excited in a horrible way when they find you taking photos. Bowling alleys, too. My brother and I actually had a very bizarre encounter with a worker at one, but that's a story for another time.

As for how it tasted: the fruit was fragrant, sweet and tangy, lightly tasting of banana and pear. Its flesh reminded me of the lychee's, in that it was white and juicy, but was a bit slimier and not as firm – it melts as you eat it. The insides are sectioned like a tangerine's. The seeds were large, with smooth, chestnut-like shells.

Photo credit: Cream and Sugar

The verdict? It was OK. Just OK. It's very possible that these just weren't good and ripe and fresh mangosteens. They could've been imports. In any case, they were a bit too tangy for me, and the fruit to seed ratio was not as high as I personally like.

Wishlist for Blogger UI (ongoing)

2011-11-20T13:40:00.001-08:00

Here's a list of UX complaints I have with Blogger. Will add more as I become more familiar with the interface.

WARNING: Probably won't make sense to non-Blogger users. And in either case this is not titillating material.

Make it quicker to publish a post by moving the Publish button to the bottom part of the right panel. That's a standard spot for action buttons (e.g., Save).

It's also the fastest to get to. It takes some time for my mouse to locate the Publish button's hot spot currently since it's in the centerish of the top panel. (When I'm writing a post, my mouse is not usually resting at the top of the screen – it's resting somewhere in the post body.) And as Fitt's Law dictates, it's speediest to move your mouse to the four corners of the screen.


Here's what I see at the top of my screen.

Shorten the pathway to customizing the blog's appearance. It takes way too long to get to the 'Edit CSS' area. The current pathway is: Dashboard → Template → Customize → Advanced → Add CSS. I know it's not a basic feature, but if a user's obviously not using a default template, there's a good chance that they're tweaking CSS and could benefit from a shortcut somewhere.

I think that this "Design" link in the topnav

should immediately go to the "Customize" view:

It's more likely that a user's going to want to customize their current theme, vs. picking a new skin and starting from scratch – that's a more drastic, less frequent action.

Better image integration. I can't really embed slideshows or utilize any other sexy gallery navigation.

Offer themes that people will actually want to use. Tumblr's beautiful themes are enough for me to want to drop blogger. It's only due to account centralization that I haven't gone there yet.

A couple Yucatán fruits

2011-11-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

In April 2011, I traveled to the Yucatán peninsula. This was a place that I'd been aching, absolutely aching to go to. Top reasons were its cenotes – freshwater sinkholes with crystal-clear turquoise water, often found in limestone caves – and its diversity of plant and animal life.

A couple fruits that I managed to nab at a small supermarket in the less touristy areas surrounding Playa Del Carmen:

Cainito Fruit, or Star Apple
It's called the star apple because you're supposed to bisect it properly. (Oops.) I got a green-skinned variety, though there are purple ones as well.

Its insides were a gorgeous magenta and white hue. Taste-wise, it was creamy and mildly sweet, a bit of melon and a bit of sour grape. Texture-wise, it was very soft and pulpy.

Custard Apple
The exterior was a bit reptilian, though not as nearly as much as the snakefruit's. Another interesting name for it is Bullock's heart – you can see why. Its flesh was soft and milky, tasting a little bit like banana and pineapple, but more tart. Didn't taste very custard-like to me, it was much too tart for that.

P.S. Check out Playa del Carmen!