spacekadet

Seems I've been too busy posting on SmarterFitter to say much on this corner of the web. That said, I'm cross-posting this recent entry on No Year's Resolutions, which contain some scenes of a personal nature that seem appropriate here.

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever."

The above passage by Mark Twain sums up what most of already know about New Year's Resolutions: they basically blow. Looking back at my blog circa January 2004, I found this somewhat depressing excerpt:

this year is going to be all about making productive choices in my life. i’m going to SERIOUSLY look for a job. i’m not going to smoke no matter how stressed out or drunk or lonely i am. i’m not going to binge drink. i’m going to excercise and eat good food and master thin crust pizza. and i’m also going to continue to try not to talk shit about (or tease or belittle) other people.

What's wrong with this picture? The paragraph is essentially a laundry list of all the things I procrastinated doing the year before. Furthermore, most of those resolutions are in response to something negative: smoking too much, drinking too much, loneliness?! The only item with an ounce of merit is the thing about thin crust pizza, which I still haven't mastered, almost 4 years later. Here's what history has taught me about resolutions, New Year's or otherwise:

• They enable procrastination
• They set me up for failure
• They make me feel worse, which is stupid, because I set them to feel better
• Resolutions in response to something negative - be it smoking, drinking, eating or working - never work
• Resolutions are always challenging, no matter what day of the year they start

Here is the last negative resolution I'm ever going to make: to abandon New Year's Resolutions forever. Instead, I will only engage in what I affectionately term the No Year's Resolution: Here's the idea: Make positive changes now instead of putting them off for some arbitrary date in the future. A couple rules:

• The moment I "set" a resolution, that resolution starts that very instant
• Set only positive goals
• Deprive myself of nothing

Here's the goal: to radically enjoy The Holiday Season rather than simply survive it. Then step into the completely arbitrary "new year" having done something I feel good about. Who's with me? The above is the last of my negative commentary on resolutions (you already know why they suck). Instead, stay tuned for some hopefully useful tips on taking action and setting positive goals for a season that has a lot to offer, like friends and pie. I also want to feature people who are taking a similar approach to the season, so if you know of anyone, please let me know! Tim has already blogged about resolving to go for a walk today. Here are some resolutions I've made

• Enjoy sparkling water with Ginger cordial at work - and accept that this small amount of unprocessed sugar is tastier and far better for my health than diet pop
• Prioritize my morning swim - Aim to go 3 times a week before work, planning my schedule every Sunday to accomodate evenings out (especially ones that tend to be rather late and merry)
• Be 100% vegan at home - this just feels good, dammit
• Be booze-free at home - and enjoy a drink or two when I go out with my friends (ok, maybe 3 drinks)

Posted by monica at 01:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have installed wordpress and indend to migrate completely over to this blog very soon.

I am also procrastinating.

Posted by monica at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Some of you have heard me speak in loathing of the people who go to the organic farmer's market just to have an Organic Farmer's Market Experience (you may also catch these same people at Monmouth Coffee having a London Cafe Experience).

I feel like a hypocrite today because Tim and I had what can only be called a Farmer's Market Experience. Not only did we talk to the Ripple Farm guy about his cavalo nero kale, but we also talked jam and chutney with a lady from Marinas Organic Garden, right before buying a jar each of Damson Jam and Apple Chutney.

Stay tuned. Now that I have some yummy chutney, it's time to have a London Cheese Shop Experience.

Posted by monica at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

London is rife with Indian restaurants, but good ones are few and far between. How far? Try two tubes and a bus ride. But that didn't stop Tim and I from meeting a friend at Chai Pani near Marble Arch last night.

Chai Pani is the only restaurant in London to offer the cuisine of Marwar, a region of Rajasthan in western India. Happiness for me, the Marwari's are vegetarian, and they love their dal.

Their menu is huge, and somewhat uncomprehensible to us western folk: desert berries, bajra khichadi, kadhi, bitter goard. Almost everything is offered wheat-free or vegan, such as millet rotis, buckwheat flour pancakes, lentil dumplings... they even had a besan cheela!

We couldn't decide on any one dish, so we each ordered a thali, a selection of dishes served on a circular metal tray. Our thalis varied, but each featured a starter, subzi (curries), dal, roti (bread), rice, and mithaai (dessert).

My salad of whole wheat berries with tomatoes and a tangy dressing was simple, but satisfying. The soy yogurt raita (I requested a vegan thali) was surprisingly delicious. I eat soygurt on my muesli, but wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it with savory dishes. This raita was inspirational: a liberal dose of salt and spice masked the "soyness" of the yogurt. I ended up eating it with a spoon.

The stand-out dish was the dal: a simple but spicy (woefully small) bowl of heaven. I would have been very happy (and less poor) with a larger bowl of this and and a side of roti; everything else in the thali paled in comparison.

Some of our dishes were quite bizarre indeed. Tim was treated to some "desert berries", black stringy things that looked more like twigs and tasted less like food. For dessert, he received what looked like a bowl of brown sugar, along with some plain jaggery and another bowl of orange-colored sugar. My dessert seemed to be wheat mushed with water and sugar. Sugar sugar sugar. I didn't bother.

Accodring to their website, "Chai Pani" is a term denoting the offering of hospitality to guests in a sub continental home. If that's true, then Chani Pani the restaurant definitely lives up to its name. I'm pretty sure most of our dishes were made to order, and the staff are beyond polite. The owner/chef type lady came out while we were eating and asked how we enjoyed the food and inquired why I ordered a vegan thali (kind of weird, but okay).

So the food was pretty damn good and it was fun trying new things even if they were too weird to finish. The thing is, Chai Pani is crazy expensive for what you get. The bill came to almost £100 for our three thalis and three large beers. You can go to Govinda's in Soho and pay £4.50 for the same amount of food. You won't get beer or table service, but you do get damn good food that doesn't leave you in mourning when it's over. Same goes for Rasa, which is as far as I can tell the best vegetarian Indian restaurant in London.

I guess I need to lighten up and accept that London is really expensive and a $62 USD meal is just life as usual unless you get your meals at KFC or a kebab shop.

Posted by monica at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The song 'Not Going Home' by The Elected is one of my favoritest discoveries of SXSW 2006. Today I happened upon their set Dec 5, 2005 set on Morning Becomes Eclectic and fell in love all over again.

The Elected is headed up by Blake Sennet, guitarist of Rilo Kiley, another band I have no exposure to but possibly should.

Yeah, I'm always a little late to catch on to good music. But usually I get there.

Have a listen. If you like what you hear, listen some more:

• The Elected's official website
• The Elected on Morning Becomes Eclectic
• 'Not Going Home' mp3 courtesy of SXSW.com
• 'Not Going Home' video on YouTube

Posted by monica at 08:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have made our first profits on SmarterFitter: $0.09 off of a click-through ad on the blog! Very exciting.

Posted by monica at 05:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rootmaster Sunday Lunch
Originally uploaded by lucy_copping

This afternoon I used my lunchbreak to look for a brew basket so I can enjoy loose-leaf tea at work. "Tea Smith" is a trendy tea shop nearby that seems born to sell brew baskets, but all they carry is a £21 procelan mug-filter combo thing to go with their equally expensive tea. To their credit, the 2-person staff really care about tea and proper brewing and have lots of good reasons for preferring the ceramic basket. They even tried to help by suggesting a few places I might try but whose names I forget because they are too far away for me to bother.

So I decided to use the time to shop for a winter coat. I tried a few shops around Brick Lane but they left me feeling either poor or way uncool, so I thought I'd listen to music at Rough Trade Records, but felt even less cool there.

I don't know why I was feeling like such a square this afternoon but I was.

In the end, I didn't find a tea basket, but I did see something cool - someone has turned an old Routemaster bus into a restaurant (called Rootmaster), and it's parked behind The Old Truman Brewery. I doubt I'll ever dine there because it's probably overpriced and we cook better food at home (a general rule when it comes to dining out in London). I'm glad there are people in the world who think "wouldn't it be cool to turn an old Routemaster into a cafe?" and then they go and do it.

Read TimeOut's review of TeaSmith

************

Since writing the above I found the Rootmaster's website. Turns out it's a travelling gig, whose goal is to promote "healthy living and respect for the environment". Their website was clearly created prior to its inception:

A traditional London Routemaster bus will be transformed into a vegan restaurant and wine bar. This conversion will offer dining both upstairs and in front fo the bus beneath an awning, as well as takeaway service. The bus will feature a restaurant grade kitchen serving original recipes made with fresh, locally sourced produce.

Green issues are a priority for us and so the bus will undergo all necessary conversions to make ita s environmentally friendly as possible. We hope to offer an innovative, healthy product at a fair price that will appeal to all.

The food is in the £10 range, which isn't cheap, especially when Story Deli is just a few steps away and has the best pizza in the world. But that's another story.

Posted by monica at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This weekend's been so good, it's impossible to not have the Sunday blues a little bit. Sunshine. Crisp, cool air. Uncharacteristically blue skies. No where to be. Nothing to do for a change. There's a warm, autumnal vibe in London. It makes me happy to be here.

Here's a summary of some really happy things that I've enjoyed these past few days. Reading through them I see they mostly revolve around food, but no surprises there....

• Made my first batch of homemade soy yogurt with soy milk and a spoonful of dairy yogurt - the results were successful if, that is, you don't mind the taste of soy yogurt

• Enjoyed the arrival of apple season by indulging in a few of my favorite apples, the Egremont Russet
  
• Went to a gastropub for some fairly average tall food with some way better than average people

• Decided more or less that I want to move on from London before Christmas 2009
• Started a soughdough starter with water and rye flour
• Enjoyed some of the sunniest (and coolest) weather of autumn by walking around Clissold park a few times, cycling to the pub, and sitting on the couch by the window

• Cooked two recipes from the Rasa cookbook, a mung bean curry and savoy cabbage - both dishes made us go "mmmm"
• Rethemed the SmarterFitter blog, with the addition of a few monetizing features, plus a couple blog posts
• Listened to Neil Young's Prairie Wind a few times in a row
• Decided that Wordpress is "the business" and set up a DB for the wordpressified spacekadet blog of the future
• Watched the Science of Sleep - weird weird movie, maybe wonderful, too, but haven't decided yet
• Started A Million Little Pieces by Opera's nemesis, James Frey
• Took a few pictures
• Decided no more chores on the weekend

Posted by monica at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm really glad I read the synopsis of Macbeth on Wikipedia before going to see the performance last night. Otherwise I would not have enjoyed the show as much as I did.

The witches were really creepy, Lady Macbeth was a psycho bitch, and the blood and gore was tangible; but the best part for me was seeing Patrick Stewart in a role true to his Shakespearean roots.

The next best part was going to the stage door after the show and having a mini-conversation with Patrick Stewart while he signed my ticket stub. He asked if I enjoyed the show. Of course I said and I did, and that I also saw him in "A Life in the Theatre" and that was really awesome too. And he said "Oh! Good! I've been wanting to take that one to New York!" And I said "Oh you should!" And then we thanked each other and I in turn thanked Tim and Lucy for waiting on me.

I also got Kate Fleetwood's (Lady Macbeth's) autograph. She seemed nice, too, but very tired!

Posted by monica at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

That's the number of US executives who say employees' work attire influences their chance of promotion.

I'm screwed.

Link (via Jim's tumblr)

Posted by monica at 02:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)