Almost two years ago, I wrote a long blog post about some summer adventures – one in California and one in Des Moines, Iowa. Almost a week ago, I boarded a plane, dressed proudly in my ‘Des Moines Hell Yes‘ t-short that I had taken home from my [...]]]>

Almost two years ago, I wrote a long blog post about some summer adventures – one in California and one in Des Moines, Iowa. Almost a week ago, I boarded a plane, dressed proudly in my ‘Des Moines Hell Yes‘ t-short that I had taken home from my last visit, and set off for another Iowa adventure. This time it was a celebration for the same dear friend I had gone to visit the first time. And it seems that every great celebration involves great cupcakes these days. So while it was not the first time I visited Des Moines (which is actually pretty cool), it was the first time I saw green cupcakes. These little gems are chocolate-pistachio cupcakes and not only did they taste wonderful, they added an exciting splash of color to an already very well-dressed dessert table.

This trip to Des Moines was also the first of that quintessential sequence of college-friend weddings that magically reunites you with a whole bunch of your favorite people in the whole world who no longer live a bike ride away from you. When we were not eating green cupcakes, we were starting the first-ever dance party at WineFest, drinking delicious beers at the well-stocked Royal Mile and eating Jethro’s BBQ (Iowa sweet corn cornbread? exceptional). It was a smash-hit of a weekend (quite literally if you count the bruises I came home with) and a testament to the idea that a cupcake tastes sweeter when you are surrounded by your sweethearts.

I went to New York City and this is what I found.

I also found this…

A place on the sidewalk where you can see beautiful aging cheese just beyond your toes. The rest of the cheese is underneath [...]]]>

I went to New York City and this is what I found.

I also found this…

A place on the sidewalk where you can see beautiful aging cheese just beyond your toes. The rest of the cheese is underneath here…

A brilliant cheese shop that a dear friend of mine called her favorite spot and houses a bustling flurry of cheese lovers and pasta lovers alike. Many of their options are made at Murray’s and I came across an enviable collection of local goodies – from elaborately flavored yogurt in mini-milk bottle containers to salty chocolate.

A year and a half after being accepted to the program, Gavin has finally started the UCDavis BrewMaster Program. Which meant that we needed to get Gavin to Davis before it started two weeks ago. Since we never pass up a chance at an [...]]]>

A year and a half after being accepted to the program, Gavin has finally started the UCDavis BrewMaster Program. Which meant that we needed to get Gavin to Davis before it started two weeks ago. Since we never pass up a chance at an adventure, no matter how small, we planned a short, interesting road trip that would ultimately get us from Portland, OR to Davis, CA.

After one restorative night in Silverton, Gavin’s quiet, lovely hometown, before making our way to Ashland. After reading about airbnb.com in ReadyMade magazine and discovering how simple and awesome it is, I had booked us a little garden studio in Talent, OR. Talent is about 5 miles north of Ashland. This first experience with airbnb got me hooked – the studio was clean and comfortable, complete with space to make our morning granola, a little porch to read on that unusually sunny January morning and shampoo already in the shower. We certainly enjoyed staying in a neighborhood where walks along country roads were right around the corner and crucial help during a car-trouble episode was happily given. Clearly, I am recommending using airbnb to find a sweet spot to sleep on your next adventure.

We spent part of our afternoon at Southern Oregon Brewing (my favorite S.O.B. brew? Pin-Up Porter). While working with Green Bottling, Gavin spent some time getting to know Scott, the Brewmaster, and becoming an admirer of him and his brew-skills while working with Green Bottling. I had a great time understanding why. We rounded off the evening with dinner at Taj Indian Cuisine in Ashland, where my craving for good Indian food that started almost a year ago when we moved to Portland was finally satiated. Man, it was good. We started with some fantastic Goat Cheese Tikki, only to be followed by my favorite Indian dish, Malai Kofta. We even had the pleasure of a view of the gargantuan oyster mushroom that some locals at the table next to us had foraged and brought to dinner as a table decoration for their birthday celebration. Honestly, it was bigger than my head.

On our way to Davis from Ashland, we decided to take a bit of a detour through Chico to check out Sierra Nevada Brewery. It was even bigger than that mushroom. Though I was impressed by the size and sheen of the brewery itself, the very large restaurant lacked the character that I had hoped for from this beloved California brewery. Although this feeling was soon shaded by the surprisingly good food we devoured for lunch and the even better specialty brews only available at the brewery. The list is long and far from disappointing. So if you’re hungry, up for a good beer and happen to find yourself in Chico, stop there for lunch.

As day turned to night, we rode into Davis. I would have been very happy to just keep driving – eating good food and drinking great beer as we do so well, but not this time. Week one of brew school has reportedly gone very well and undeniably transformed Gavin into a willing bookworm. It’s funny what can happen when you teach a young, aspiring brewer chemistry, biology, and engineering in the context of cold, bubbly brewskies. It’s both impressive and inspiring. I’ll be back in Davis in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how the beer tastes.

*photo by my (very talented) friend, James De Leon

alright, i’m officially back. Not just back in the United States but back to more regular blogging habits. Now that I don’t have to find an internet cafe and pay for the use of a computer every time I want [...]]]>

*photo by my (very talented) friend, James De Leon

alright, i’m officially back. Not just back in the United States but back to more regular blogging habits. Now that I don’t have to find an internet cafe and pay for the use of a computer every time I want to get online. Which, I have to admit, is pretty great. Because I’m a little nerdy and I love the internet. But that should be obvious since I just mentioned my ‘blogging habits.’We returned from SE Asia safe and sound about 3 weeks ago. To put it simply, the trip was fantastic. It was interesting, weird and fun. It was definitely a world apart from what I am used to, which is always good. It was also just where I needed and wanted to be for those four months. But now I am happy to say that I am happy to be back. Because a new adventure has begun. And it’s all happening in Portland, OR… (Still thinking of writing a few post-Asia posts about Asia in the near future. fyi.)

But before we made it here, we stopped in Los Angeles and San Francisco to visit people that we love. It took a few days to readjust to English, concrete, a cell phone and the lack of good street food but, eventually, we did it. That adjustment was made a lot easier by the presence of friends and family that we had missed a lot. Luckily, all of those things are continuing as we are with family and friends here in Oregon too. There have been meals, chats, walks, drives and hugs. The last thing being the best part, of course. But all of those things have been executed with lots of love, making my heart feel as though it is a red, heart-shaped balloon.

So now I’m going to share a recipe with you that I used for a particularly lovely meal with lots of dear, dear friends. It was Valentine’s Day. One very spectacular friend had decided to cook for all of us (and there were many) to celebrate the day. To note, the meal was almost as spectacular as she is… which means it was very, very good. I had volunteered to make the dessert because it had been over 4 months since I’d made a dessert, I love making dessert and my desserts are generally well-received among my circle of friends in San Francisco. I wanted it to be relatively easy because it wasn’t my kitchen and I wanted to watch Olympic Figure Skating too. So I found a cream puff recipe and made Lemon-WhiteChocolate-CreamPuffs… And they were delicious!

Here is the Cream Puff Recipe I used and here are the amendments I made to it:

• Instead of 2 packages of vanilla pudding mix, use 1 package of French Vanilla and 1 package of Lemon. Or just make your own lemon custard from scratch!

• Toss some white chocolate chips into your custard.

• Add a bit of sugar to the dough mix. A tablespoon or so.

• When the puffs are puffed and filled, sift some powdered sugar right over the top of ‘em.

These cream puffs are soft, sweet and unique. Kinda like friends. Thanks to all our cream puffs who treated us so well during our visits. Your sweetness will not be forgotten.

Just want to send some love out there and say Merry Christmas to all you lovely folks. I hope your Christmases were as jolly as it gets and that you are [...]]]>

[If you click on those photos above, they'll get nice and big for you... You're gonna want to do that for the full effect.]

Just want to send some love out there and say Merry Christmas to all you lovely folks. I hope your Christmases were as jolly as it gets and that you are all spending this day after Christmas napping and digesting that garagantuan meal everyone knows you ate… I was not so pleased to miss out on that meal… But we did have ourselves a great Cambodian Christmas – with a riverboat ride and circus show on Christmas Eve followed by poolside gin&tonics and a lovely, fancy dinner on Christmas day. And so you all know we have been thinking of you and missing you lots, we also had ourselves a little holiday photo shoot while we were visiting the temples at Angkor a few days ago. (They may be the most amazing manifestation of human ingenuity and strength I have ever seen but there’ll be much more on that later. I really just want to focus on Jesus’ birthday now.) And there’s not too much more to say except that we love you. We had a chance to speak to (and see) our families during their Christmas celebrations on Skype today and that was really nice. Other than being stunned yet again that modern technology affords us that opportunity, I have also been thinking about the opportunity presented to a person when they are far from those they love; The opportunity to know that we are lucky enough to have all these beautiful people that miss us on Christmas day, people that miss our presence on that day as much as we miss theirs. And that’s something I have thought about a lot on this trip. How it has made me realize that I am loved and missed so much by so many people that I love and miss right back. That people think of me when I am gone and thinking of them. And that is a really fabulous feeling. Especially at Christmastime.

So thanks for all that love, peeps. And if you’re feeling a little bit unloved, maybe it’s time for a vacation?!?!

Merry Christmas everyone…

Let’s see… where did I leave you? In Thailand I believe. So now I want to give you the low-down on Malaysia since that is where we’ve been for the last month. And here’s how I plan to do it: food. Bet you didn’t see that coming…

After a month and a half in [...]]]>

Let’s see… where did I leave you? In Thailand I believe. So now I want to give you the low-down on Malaysia since that is where we’ve been for the last month. And here’s how I plan to do it: food. Bet you didn’t see that coming…

After a month and a half in Thailand, the tastes of Malaysia were exciting and satisfying. The excitement of Malaysian cuisine comes from it being a mix of the distinct cuisines of the three most prominent ethnicities that are present in the country today. Let me explain…

#1 Our first stop in Malaysia was Pulau Penang, an island off the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia (the rest of Malaysia occupies a different piece of land and is where you find the spectacular home of so much of what you’ve seen on Planet Earth: Malaysian Borneo).  When we arrived there (after most business hours), we headed to Teluk Bahang, the beach where we decided to stay, by bus. When we got off the bus, the only sign of life was an extremely well-lit, 24-hour cafeteria looking place. We later learned that this was a Muslim, Indian food restaurant. Which means they did not sell beer but they did sell roti – the food we ate everyday on Teluk Bahang and nearly everyday after that while we were still in Malaysia. We tried and enjoyed a whole lot of Indian treats but roti holds a special place in our hearts. It was cheap, filling, and, most importantly, ridiculously delicious. It’s simple really – it’s just a type of bread. But it’s a buttery, flaky, warm type of bread and it usually comes with a small portion of curry to dip it in. And it always leaves a person smiling… Indian.

#2 Our next destination was the Cameron Highlands – a chilly, hilly and green landscape that hosts a couple of small towns that look stunningly similar to the old country of some European countries and is surrounded by lush jungle, which also happens to be one home of the world’s largest flower (It’s called Rafflesia, we saw it, it was amazing). While we were enjoying the cool weather here, we also enjoyed the cluster of food stalls just outside our guest house. We went there for just about every meal (the only exceptions being the obligatory roti now and then) and sorta became regulars at one stall in particular. It was run by a very cute Malaysian couple that wore matching bandanas which proudly donned the ultra-symbolic Canadian maple leaf. We just called them the Canadians. They were also both deaf so we exchanged a huge amount of smiles, which was really nice. A bi-product of this circumstance was that we got to just pointing at what we wanted and she got to just pointing at what we ought to have. Naturally, we always went with her suggestion. And this is where we had nasi lemak for the first time – an omni-present Malaysian dish that might actually be synonymous with breakfast. It was like their version of eggs & toast, only much more interesting. So let me explain this one. Or try anyway. I believe the words nasi lemak literally refers to the rice part of the dish, which is what I am going to encourage you to try to make, but is used to identify the whole dish. Which is this: delicious coconut-milk-soaked rice, a fried egg, little fried fish, peanuts, and, if you’re lucky, some lovely Malay-spiced chicken. I came to love this dish, all except the little fried fish, I have to admit I loathed their presence in any dish of mine but they were often present so I just had to deal with it. And I think you’d be surprised how a  little soaking in coconut milk takes rice to a whole new level… Malay.

#3 Next we headed to Melaka, an old port city with museums in ships, Portuguese forts and a glittering Chinatown. When we weren’t shopping for Christmas presents here, we were eating. For one of these eating breaks, we were drawn to an ornate storefront with an open-air dining space inside and a lot of people eating there. We got in line to be seated but when we got to the front of the line, he just asked us what we wanted to eat. We obviously didn’t know so he sort of just decided for us and shuffled us into the restaurant. What we got was chicken and rice balls in a real-real Chinese restaurant. These rice balls were wildly popular here, we saw them everywhere, and that’s probably because they’re awesome. It’s just rice formed into a perfect little ping-pong-ball-sized ball and served with some simple yummy chicken and sauce. Chinese food in Chinatown – charming… Chinese.

#4 I know I said three and that’s because this one doesn’t really count but I must share it with you. You see, after Melaka we headed to WWOOF farm #2; Kahang Organic Rice EcoFarm, to do some rice farming. We did said rice farming for about a week until the newly hired Thai rice farmers showed up on the scene and we were no longer an efficient way to get that rice farmed. So we were moved to the kitchen to cook for ourselves, about five other volunteers, about 7 permanent staff members and a variable number of guests visiting the farm. It was fun and exciting at first but began to get a bit tiring after, oh, the third or fourth meal cooked with the same exact ingredients. I eventually headed back outside for rice farming side jobs but Gavin stayed in the kitchen because, well, he’s a pretty nice guy and they needed the help in there. But that’s besides the point. The point is that with our limited ingredients and unfamiliar spice selection, we came up with a few. new Malaysia-inspired recipes to bring home. I won’t go into detail but I will describe the most important one. If you are like us and are in the habit of making breakfast potatoes nearly every weekend, then you may like this one: add some curry to your potatoes. Not a new idea, I know. Not genius either. But tasty. And we’d done it before, at home, but after about four rounds of potatoes and three different curries, we got it just right. So maybe that’s it – add the right curry and the right amount of it and keep trying until you get it just right. Then eat it with some scrambled egss maybe. Or maybe you want to just throw the eggs right in there with the taters, you know, when they’re good and crispy and properly curried. And maybe serve them with some nasi lemak on the side… sounds good, right?.. Us.

I suppose that’s it for now, I’ll let you get right to trying all these new treats out in your own kitchen… As for us, for now, we’re in Cambodia and loving it. More on that soon.

Happy cooking and happy eating!

As of this moment, we are in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. We have been in Malaysia for a few days now but I cannot move on to tales of Malaysia until I have made some very important points about Southern Thailand (we plan to visit Northern Thailand at the end of this [...]]]>  

As of this moment, we are in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. We have been in Malaysia for a few days now but I cannot move on to tales of Malaysia until I have made some very important points about Southern Thailand (we plan to visit Northern Thailand at the end of this trip). I thought it might be fun to give you day-to-day Thailand in a nutshell. Maybe larger than a nutshell… Maybe a mangosteen shell… Have you ever had one of those? They’re delicious. So…

We journeyed around Thailand by means of bus, plane, train, taxi, ferry, motorbike, minivan and tuk-tuk (a sort of open-air mini-taxi with a passenger bench somehow hooked on to a three-wheel motorbike operated by a very bold Thai man; I never saw a woman driving one). All of these transportion methods work although the prices and efficiency of each vary depending on where you are and where you are going. Usually you have to use a clever combination of two or three. We paid for each of these small journeys with Baht, the currency used in Thailand. Of course, these bills are worlds prettier than our monochrome American bills but sometimes I wonder if that doesn’t make them seem a little less real… We escaped that notion upon realizing things in Thailand, Southern Thailand at least, cost a bit more than we had anticipated. We get about 33 Baht to the dollar. And we had to watch our Bahts.  Once we got to wherever we were headed, we’d settle into the cheapest room we could find, often (and always ideally), a raised bungalow made of wood, straw and/or bamboo. The accomodations tend to be minimal (aside from the giant beds) and fit with a humbling bathroom setup – a small room with a sink on one wall aside a toilet beneath a showerhead that dispenses very cold water (no big deal in this weather). One flushes the aforementioned toilet by pouring a bowl (or a few, depending) full of water into it which was acquired from the bucket/bowl/faucet setup that always accompanies one of these toilets. You get used to this process… If we got really lucky, these bungalows would have a lovely little front deck upon which we could rest our travelers’ bums in the evening and listen to the fascinating sounds of Thailand at night. These sounds include, but are quite certainly not limited to, the melodies from an exciting and vast array of bugs, birds, reptiles, small mammals, big mammals (people) and weather. The weather generally kept us good and sweaty throughout the better portion of the day but often broke into short, but very serious, bouts of rain in the evening, sometimes in the daytime, as we were visiting at the end of the rainy season. Sometimes a nice breeze or short-lived cloud cover gave us some relief from the blazing sun when the rain was not there but usually we just had to embrace the hot, tropical weather and our resulting sweaty, stinky bodies. Which was fine, we’ve got some nice tans going… Now and then we’d be startled by some of the more intimadating thunder and lightning I’ve heard in my life, which is both exciting and slightly frightening. While Mother Nature Thailand was communicating in this way, we were attempting to communicate in the most limited Thai and a strange but effective sign language we developed. Thai is a very interesting language. I can’t say too much about it as it is written in beautiful characters that I cannot read and spoken in high-pitched sounds that I cannot understand but I can say that we were able to communicate with relative ease because so many people knew enough English to help us or were able to decipher our signs right away. It is a unique experience, though, to be in that situation. But we learned hello and thank you and used those two phrases as much as possible and they were always well-received. We also learned to greet people the Thai way, which is not achieved with a wave but a subtle head bow and a smile. If you really want to go for it, you can wai to someone by folding your hands somewhere between your forehead and your heart, depending on who it is, and giving that same little bow. There’s rather particular social rules attached to that though so I usually just stuck to the bow-smile method. But Gavin was pretty into the wai. Ask him to show you sometime if you get the opportunity. When we weren’t attempting (struggling) to communicate, we passed our time doing all kinds of good stuff – exploring, hiking, reading, swimming, and, most notably, eating. The food in Thailand was all kinds of exciting. We’ve eaten and enjoyed a fair amount of Thai food at home so we were delighted when every meal was the as-good-as-it-gets version of the Thai food we already knew. And a whole bunch of new stuff we loved. But in my opinion, the best Thai food in Thailand comes from a cart with sweet chili sauce on the side. Which is everything from Pad Thai to spring rolls to pork on a stick. It’s also the cheapest so that worked out well. I couldn’t help but measure how much I liked a town by the availability of delicious ‘street food.’ It was just that good.

Since I last wrote, we made a visa-run across and back across the Malaysian border, spent some time in Krabi province, enjoyed the festival of Loy Krathong in a spectacular place called Hat Ton Sai and did some good, hearty lounging on the island of Koh Lanta. And then, like I mentioned, we made the journey to Malaysia. Southern Thailand was great and although I’I loved those beautiful beaches and that sweet chili sauce, I must say the green, rolling hills and the fantastic cuisine of Malaysia (a dreamy mixture of Malay, Indian and Chinese) is a welcome change. I enjoyed the white sand and noodles as much as you’d imagine, but I’m also enjoying wearing my sweater and every meal here leaves me satisfied and with a smile on my face. Speaking of Malaysian food, I think I’ll go get some masala roti now. Or maybe some capati with curry. And maybe another cup of tea…

Much more on Malaysia soon. My afternoon snack is calling me now.

We left the farm after being there for [...]]]> Hello friends, I promise I’ve been thinking about you but it’s hard to be a good blogger without my trusty mac on hand all the time. But I’ve finally found a comfortable internet setup that is costing me very little so here goes with a little update…

We left the farm after being there for about a week. Ultimately, it was a good experience but mostly because we met some really great people and had a few unusual experiences – like making coconut oil from scratch and harvesting lemongrass, for example. The farm was not well established though and the organization/direction of the whole project left something to be desired. But we are looking forward to farming in Malaysia towards the end of November at what looks like a very well-established rice farm.

After Bang Phra (where the farm was), we headed to a place called Kanchanaburi. After being in Thailand for more than two weeks, the nature we found in and around Kanchanaburi town was just what we needed. We stayed there a few days, in a little bungalow on stilts above the water at a corner of the River Kwai that goes through the town. Kanchanaburi town and it’s railroad are a pretty important piece of Thailand’s history during World War II. But, neither of us really in the mood for museums, we opted for the nearby Erawan National Park instead where we visited the Erawan Waterfall, a 7-tiered waterfall that is surely something to be reckoned with. We kept our pace consistent but not rushed for the two-hour hike to the 7th tier, coming across each equally impressive waterfall ‘step’ along the way. The equally impressive part only concerns tier 1-6 because the 7th tier was in a class all its own: extraordinary. And huge. We got right in the water at that 7th tier because by then we had earned it, being 120% sweaty. We had another lovely swim on our way down at the 2nd tier, sweaty once again. It was a fantastic day.

We also indulged ourselves in an absolutley delicious Indian meal while we were there, not because we don’t love Thai food, which we do, but because Ali Bongo’s Indian Restaurant was just impossible to resist.  Totally worth it. And that meal came just the night before our first Thai motorbike adventure (costing about six dollars for 24hours), which was truly an adventure as they drive on the left side and have a pretty unique style of driving. But Kanchanaburi town is very low on traffic, we promise we both wore helmets and I just rode on the back and let Gavin figure out the left side thing, so it worked out well. We rode our motorbike into the hills on the other side of the river to visit a Buddhist temple that had been established some time ago in the nine rooms of a limestone cave, now complete with a Buddha in each room (sometimes more than one) and bats. It was wicked awesome, as some would say. So I’d give 5 stars to Kanchanaburi town. There’s even more you can do there, like visit the Tiger Temple and go elephant trekking, but that was a bit out of our budget.

After that, we made the journey back to Bangkok to meet our two friends who flew in from Portland. We weren’t there long till we all agreed to head for the beach. We finally made it to Ko Samui after a long taxi-plane-bus-ferry-trucktaxi journey and it’s dreamy. We hadn’t really planned on coming here since it’s pretty touristy but decided we didn’t care that much and just needed to get to the beach as quickly as possible so here we are. We’ve been doing a lot of lounging, swimming and eating although Gavin and I have also been doing our fair share of trying to work out how to extend our Thai Visa, which expires on the 31st of this month. Turns out the hardest, most expensive place to attempt a Thai visa extension is Thailand. So tomorrow we’ll be embarking on a quick little journey into Malaysia; if you cross the border and come back in, you get a new, free 30-day Thai visa. Then we’re headed back up into Thailand, to Krabi, to take in the west coast for just a little while before we go to Malaysia for real-real.

But for today, in preparation for our ‘Visa Run,’ we’ll just be chilling on the beach and in our cute, rustic little beach bungalow.

Thinking of all of you, of course.

***

I wasn’t really able to upload new photos to Flickr this time round but I’ll do that as soon as I can. Cuz’ I’ve got some real good ones;)