spacekadet

... it tastes nothing like yogurt at all!

Posted by monica at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

is that what i am? is this person in a pressed shirt and pointy shoes really me??

i've been working at the bank for two weeks now. two weeks? time flies in the desk farm. i'm reluctant to write about it; i get the sense that it's the kind of job that might be jeopardized if i said anything, good or bad, about what happens beyond the lobby. after all, it took three months of background checks for me to get a security badge to the place.

though the precise tuning of the bank's gears is a well kept secret, surely my feelings about being a part of it are not.

the work itself is interesting, the kind of thing i'd always hoped to do as an applied "mathematician". i'm digging through data, looking for patterns, making pretty pictures, using my brain, and learning a shit ton of cool math tricks, and less cool but necessary knowledge about finance and accounting. i'm a part of The City of London, and that in itself is a beautiful, fascinating thing. i'm behind the scenes, observing London from the inside, getting to the heart of what makes this city work. there's history here, in its narrow ways and old stone buildings and tiny pubs, in its train stations and bustling markets and ridiculous business suits. i feel like a spy, and that's kind of fun.

but part of being a spy is pretending to be something i'm not. and fun as that may for now, i wonder how long it will before my face gets sweaty behind this heavy mask. i wish it were only the clothes that made me feel this way. i could deal with wearing nice clothes (and so could the rest of the world, i'm sure).

bah, i shall say no more about that. instead: i'm learning lots of useful math and that's really exciting. it's also good to be working again. weird having a real grown up job. luckily i don't work with grown ups. i work with youngsters like me, some even younger. there are math geeks and engineering nerds and mba biz-kids and people from all over the world. everyone is smart and motivated and that in turn motivates me. really, what more could i want in a job?!?!?!? aside from the chance to save the world.....

Posted by monica at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Snow!
Originally uploaded by rvnix.

A little before 7am this morning, i emerged from my flat to a special surprise: snow! You could almost call it a "blanket", a blanket of pristine bright white relieving London of it's usual drear. By 8am, the snow had turned to sludge beneath the dirty feet of thousands of commuters. I'm just glad I caught it at its best.

Posted by monica at 03:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It figures that I should find the recipe I’ve been looking for on the Whole Foods website: Apple Nut Muffins, free from dairy, eggs and sugar! Sounds like the complete opposite of a muffin to me, but I dove in anyway, imparting a few minor tweaks: I added cinnamon, subbed almonds for walnuts, and added some chopped apricots for good measure. I even gave the flax eggs another try and cut down on the canola oil to compensate.

The muffins were good, but they weren’t great. The apple flavour didn’t come out as much as I would have liked (this could have been the gala apple I was using). They were also a bit dense, but this was a bran muffin after all, so what did I expect? Also, silvered almonds were the wrong cut of almond. They get kind of lost in the shuffle; roughly chopped would have been better. Almonds are yummy and should stand out from the mix.

On the plus side, the muffins were moist rather than mushy. I was impressed by their sweetness, despite the lack of sugar. The raisins and apricots compensated amply. Apricots: a stroke of genius! I think next time I’ll skip the raisins altogether. The crowning touch was a single almond placed on top of each muffin during baking providing a special roasted treat, especially when in the vicinity of an almond.

Apple Bran Nutfins

Dry Ingredients
* 13/4 cups whole wheat flour
* 1/2 cup wheat bran
* 1 1/8 TB baking powder
* 1/2 tsp sea salt
* 1/2 cup slivered almonds
* 1/2 cup raisins and chopped almonds
* 1/2 cup fresh apple, diced
* 1 tsp cinnamon

Liquid Ingredients
* 1 "flax egg"
* 2 TB water
* 1 cup applesauce
* 3/4 cup water
* 1 TB organic canola oil

Crowning glory Ingredients
* 8 almonds (1 for each muffin)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly oil a 8-muffin tin (WF claims 6 muffins, and I don't think 8-muffin tins really exist, but you get the picture).

In one bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix together the liquid ingredients.

Combine dry and liquid ingredients stirring just enough to thoroughly blend batter. Add more bran if consistency is too thin. Scoop into muffin tin. Bake for 18 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to sit in the tin for a few minutes before removing.

You can adjust the sweetness by tweaking the water to applesauce ratio.

And speaking of applesauce, I've discovered that I'm an applesauce fan... I warmed some up with cinnamon for desert the other day and it brought me back to a special place in time when I used to eat more polish food. I bet these muffins would be good with a little applesauce smeared on top of them. Or peanut butter. Or straight up butter, but that wouldn't be very vegan.

Posted by monica at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i just tried to make some vegan muffins. it was an absolute disaster.

i wanted some not-terribly-sweet vegan apple bran muffins. working with a few recipe books and the mighty interweb, i found all sorts of recipes - vegan bran muffins, vegan apple carrot muffins, dairified bran muffins. despite my best google searches, nothing quite fit. but hey, i'm creative.

i decided to combine aspects from several recipes and came up with my own super recipe. i even incorporated a recipe for "flax eggs": blending flax and water results in a goopy egg-like mixture that allegedly works well as a binder in baked goods.

things went well until i turned on the oven. i guess i had it on the grill setting, so when i put the muffins in, the tops burned within minutes. this was sad because i put cute little apple bits on top of each muffin, thinking it would be really tasty to have a mini baked apple on top of the muffin. but mostly they just went black.

things went downhill from there. in the end, the muffins didn't really bake in the middle. i don't know if it was the flax eggs or the grill debacle or what. the muffins also didn't rise very much.

i've felt kind of "off" ever since this fiasco... i want my muffins dammit. but i've grown impatient and flowly and i know if i try to cook muffins now they'll lack the love.

so now what?

Posted by monica at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'd heard about the gale-force winds heading for London, so opted for the bus over the bicycle yesterday. It was pretty windy at lunch time, but things must have worsened, because when I left for home in the evening, Bishopsgate Road was eerily trafficless. The only movement was that of newspaper in the wind, and the bustle of 1000's of commuters, scurrying across the empty streets, cell phones glued to their ears.

Some cars couldn't cross the Thames due to the winds; other vehicles were blocked by fallen debris. London's gears grinded to a hault, and people were lost without its trusty machinery. The silence cast a strange apocalyptic yet peaceful glow on the City.

I ended up walking home, savoring the unusual silence that's usually so hard to find in London. It was a treat but for the fact that the winds actually killed some people. That's the sad part of the story.

Posted by monica at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been two and a bit years since I added fish to my previously lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. It was an interesting adventure, but one that my conscience couldn't persist. I've always known somewhat hazily that I wanted to go back to being a "straight up" vegetarian. But I also knew I wanted to have some "good fish" while in New Zealand, a country that is pretty much entirely seaside. NZ seemed like a good place to end my sea fare consumption on a high note.

Last Wednesday I had my final fishy meal at "dine", a posh restaurant in Auckland. dine is a Peter Gordon deal, Peter Gordon being one those "celebrity chef" type characters, a name you'd know if you cared about things like Michelin stars and molecular gastronomy. (weird: i suddenly find myself in a social place where chefs carry more weight than movie stars and Michilin stars are more sought after than academy awards.) i don't usually go in for the pompasity of fine dining, preferring instead something a quainter, louder, cheaper, but usually more authentic (right now I'm thinking of Islington's Mediterranean delight, Mem & Laz, which manages to seat at least 20 in a space that's more of a walk-in closet than a restaurant. But the coziness adds to its flair, as does the candlelight, halmoumi, fantastic and cheap house wine, and a bill that's usually less than £30 for a 2-course meal for two).

But sometimes I throw bargains to the wind and t-shirts to the hamper. Oh, and leave the wine list on the table, please.

I started with "whitebait fritters". Whitebait is a tiny fish, about an inch long and only a few millimeters in diameter. I was expecting something like a fish cake, but it turns out that the whitebait variety of fritter is more of an omelet than anything else. Whole whitebait are used in the eggy concoction, a quality of the food that some find difficult to deal with (it's all in the eyes, I reckon). The taste reminded me a bit of egg foo young, minus the msg. It was okay but not spectacular. Tim's seared tuna, on the other hand, was superb. It came with a tangy yuzu umeboshi dressing that managed to be flavourful without overpowering the taste of the fish. Thanks for the bite!

For my main dish, I had a "pan-roast North Island snapper on Israeli couscous and bok choy with tom yum broth and green-pea, shiitake and karengo salsa". I didn't really get a sense of the shiitake or karengo (whatever that is), but I love peas so loved the salsa anyway. And the Israeli couscous was really cool - larger than regular couscous, pearly but firm like cooked wheatberries. I may have to add it to my repertoire at home. The snapper was delicious, and took my time savouring each bite. And when it was gone, I felt satisfied, both with my meal, and my stint as a fake vegetarian.

Will I ever go back to eating fish? Maybe, depending on where I happy to be living (NZ, for example, had beautiful produce but a dearth of vegetarian fair on its cafe menus). These are my sentiments at the moment: I'll eat fish again if I catch it myself. (Note: this is not a subtle hint that I want a fishing pole for my birthday.)

I didn't intend to "resolve" anything in honor of the new year, but here it seems I got caught up in the momentum. So be it. Thanks for the protein, now pass the soy beans!

Posted by monica at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

you know how nice it is when someone comes to pick you up at the airport? especially when that someone actually parks the car and meets you at the arrivals gate, wearing a look of anticipation as they watch for you to appear from the terminal?

there was no one waiting for me when i got into London today. there's something lonely about dealing with two 12-hour flights and a rather large pile of luggage on my own. it hits me when i walk through the arrivals gate and see all those faces waiting for someone else. it hits me again when i get home to the empty apartment. it hits me again when i cook up a veggie burger for one, and again when i can't decide what to read while i eat my veggie burger, because the truth is i'm too tired to read and i just want someone to enjoy the goofiness of jetlag with.

i got back to London today, leaving Tim behind in NZ. he'll be back in a couple weeks, but wouldn't it be nice if he were around today to keep me awake?

instead i'll drink yerba mate and listen to Faith No More and kick it in the apartment wearing pajamas and a warm pink robe.

in the thick of sudden solitude, i'm also happy to be back, a feeling aided by short queues at the airport and an unusual amount of sunshine for a London winter. in the cab ride home, i stared out the window and watched all the old stuff go by and realized how much i like being surrounded by old buildings. even the relics that are in dire need of a bath remind me of the grittiness that gives London an edge. i guess i'm just glad to be back in a real city again.

and speaking of the city, i start my new job tomorrow!

Posted by monica at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i've taken an overwhelming number of photos on this trip: 1339 so far plus more on the camera. whenever i attempt to sort through them, my head gets heavy and i feel a sudden need for a nap or a cup of coffee. i'm also way behind on updates. lots has happened and i don't even know where to begin.

i've seen lots of awesome things on this trip, but only a few experiences have "blew my mind". let me tell you about one of them:

Tim and i went camping in Tongariro National Park, home of a few cool mountains including the snowy Ruapehu. on our drive out of the park, he suggested we cruise up the mountain as far as we could to see the view. we stopped at the car park and had a look. it took me a few seconds to notice Mount Taranaki over 80 miles in the distance, floating above the clouds.

after this, we drove to Taranaki to take in the view from the other direction (we had to climb Taranaki to do this, but that's a story for another day). thought the scene was spectacular, it didn't blow my mind like the Taranaki Surprise.

Posted by monica at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was X's birthday; Tim and I made him a cake.

Yesterday was also new year's eve. I celebrated with Tim and some other great people at a fantastic apartment with a sweet deck and a hot barbecue. My appetite didn't slow down all night. I snacked on

crackers
smoked salmon
cheese (feta, blue, and havarti)
bread
feta-stuffed pepperdillos
skewers of tofu, pineapple, bell pepper, onion and mushroom, smothered in bbq sauce and grilled to perfection
tofu sausages
rocket and parmesan salad
strawberries
fruit salad
cake
ice cream
whipped cream
more cheese and crackers

I don't know how I managed to eat so much (I'm sure all the beer and champaign had nothing to do with it). Actually it was easy: everything was so delicious. And surprise! The people were as delicious as the food: just a small crew of Tim's friends, genuine people who I'm lucky to know. It was the kind of party where everyone seemed to let loose, panic free, and everything just worked. Tim and I left sometime after 2am, drunk and happy and ready for sleep.

Today I breath a huge sigh of relief. The silly season is over, in fact, it came and went with barely a murmur. For this I am thankful. 2006 was a great year but I'm kind of glad it's over. I'm ready for 2007. I'm ready to get on with it.

Life.

Tomorrow, Tim and I pack up a rental car with camping gear and groceries and head south to Tongariro and Egmont National Parks. Among other things, we're going to walk the Tongariro Crossing, a 17km alpine journey across Mount Tongariro. I've been looking forward to this trip for weeks, not only because I'm dying to see more of NZ, but because I get to spend some time alone with Tim (it feels like ages since we've had more than a couple of hours to ourselves). Tent life, camp stove cooking, sporadic showers, dirty clothes, mountain hikes, sweaty armpits - now that's what I call quality time! Only one more sleep to go....

Posted by monica at 03:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)