sushmita's posterous

November 7, 2009

Birthday hike on Angel Island

A couple weeks ago I caught a ferry from Fisherman's Wharf over to Angel Island for a birthday hike/picnic with a group of friends. As we approached the island which was enveloped in fog, we were gearing ourselves up for a creepy adventure up the mountain. As Steph said, it looked like a scene from Lost. But as soon as we got off the ferry, the fog cleared the way for beautiful weather. We did a fun 5 mile hike up to the highest point of Mt.Livermore where we got an amazing view of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, San Francisco, east bay in the distance, and Tiburon/Sausalito areas. I highly recommend taking the ~45 minute $15 round trip ferry ride over some day to check it out :)

Click here to download:

Birthday_hike_on_Angel_Island.zip (17469 KB)

Comments [2]

October 21, 2009

Piggybacks and weddings!

Did you know that a traditional South Korean wedding involves the groom giving a piggy-back ride to his mother and to his new wife? This is meant to symbolize that he'll be supporting them in the future. Piggyback on your wedding - how awesome is that? Awesome enough to make the #880 on the list of 1000 Awesome Things :)

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October 18, 2009

Deliciousness!

The Bon Appetit October issue has been good to us the past couple weeks, especially this weekend. I came home from a Diwali pooja yesterday to find a feast awaiting, cooked by my very own Chez Theo. He made Lime- and Honey-Glazed Salmon sitting atop Basmati and Broccolini, accompanied by Moroccan Rainbow Carrots (from the Nov. issue). So tasty! Theo cooked the rice in mushroom broth. Then he topped the dish with a sauce made up of lime, honey, cilantro, and soy sauce. The rice absorbed a lot of the citrus and tangy flavors and went perfectly with the salmon and broccolini.

We enjoyed last night's meal so much that we decided to try another couple recipes from this month's Bon Appetit. Tonight we made Spaghetti with Braised Kale, a recipe shared by my favorite foodie blogger (and now Bon Appetit writer) Orangette. Another big success with the spaghetti and kale dish. The kale was deliciously sweet and hearty and went well with the caramelized onion and garlic that went into the dish along with the spaghetti. I also made an attempt at brussels sprout chips, which were part of a different recipe that went with a fish dish and roasted sweet potatoes. The brussel sprout chips were not as exciting as I had hoped. They did not really crisp evenly so some leaves were still green while others were charred. I think sweet potatoes make for much better chips since they have a flat even structure that cook evenly.

Happy Diwali and bon appetit!

Click here to download:

Deliciousness.zip (11091 KB)

Filed under // food

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September 16, 2009

Welcome to the neighborhood!

Here are three reasons I discovered today about why I love our new apartment:

1. The scaffolding is gone!

From the day we moved in, there has been scaffolding up around the front of the house because they were painting the front. This made it really hard to park in our already narrow garage :P It was a two-man operation. Today we came home to find a lovely fresh painted house with *much* easier access to our garage!

2. Organic produce and seafood at our fingertips!

Turns out we have two awesome neighborhood grocery stores. We're just down the street from Golden Produce and Golden Natural Foods which seem to have a huge range of cheap produce and fresh affordable fish and meats. They also had a large selection of cheeses and other snacks (even quite a few that are gluten-free). And if both of these stores are closed, we can swing by the 24 hour Safeway. Perfect for Theo and me since we tend to need a lot of last minute ingredients when we cook :P

3. Nice neighbor!

Our downstairs neighbor just brought up a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of apple soda to welcome us to the house :)

Yay! Now if we could just finish unpacking...

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August 30, 2009

Don't piss my friends off...

A few weeks ago we went to Jackson Arms to try out some guns. I'm not really into guns, but as Theo said it's good to know how to use one "..just in case you find yourself stuck in some post apocalyptic wasteland with hostile robots." That convinced me.

We had a great instructor - a big Phillipino dude who started the 30 min intro gun safety class by asking if anyone else was hungover. He chugged a big Monster energy drink and was good to go. He taught us the rules of gun safety and then we got into the range, loaded our guns, and fired away. We started with the 22 caliber guns, moved to the 9 millimeters, and then we tried out the 45 magnum gun (think Dirty Harry). The kickback on those last two guns was crazy! They took much bigger bullets and you could see a small flame coming out of the barrel (flash of gunpowder) when you shot the 45 magnum.

Turns out a lot of my friends are fantastic shooters. Don't mess.

Click here to download:

Dont_piss_my_friends_off....zip (23871 KB)

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July 31, 2009

Weddings and divorces done in style

Most of you probably saw this awesome video of Jill & Kevin's wedding processional as it made its way around in the last couple weeks. If you didn't, definitely check it out.

Here's a fantastic response video:

Fun fact: Jill and Kevin are using their newfound popularity to advocate for a good cause - they're encouraging people to donate to the Sheila Wellstone Institute to end domestic violence. Pretty cool couple :)

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July 11, 2009

Playing with the new meat grinder

A couple years ago, Theo, our friend Laura, and I read an NY Times article about how to make the best burgers. At the time we lacked two main ingredients: a meat grinder and a grill. However, now we have both and Laura was in town a few weekends ago, so it was the perfect time to test out the article. We picked up grass-fed organic chuck and brisket from Whole Foods, following the rules of fat percentage (85/15). We used butter to lube the grinder first (we were supposed to use suet, which is meat fat around the kidneys/loins of an animal). We seasoned the meat with cilantro, salt, pepper, garlic, and soy sauce and then fed it through the grinder. Those were some delicious burgers :-D

Click here to download:

Playing_with_the_new_meat_grin.zip (22202 KB)

Filed under // food

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June 22, 2009

Treasure Hunt in SF!

I've always loved treasure hunts, so you can imagine my excitement when I heard about the Diamond Dash treasure hunt. Theo and I woke up on Sat morning and headed to Crissy Field to participate. They gave us breakfast, t-shirts (advertising David Clay Diamonds), and then we were off! Different clues and riddles were texted to each pair and we ran around the area solving and answering the puzzles.

Theo and I solved the final puzzle reasonably fast and were headed to the area where the diamond ring was hidden when we got a txt saying that the diamond had been found, game over. Shucks. But we headed over anyways because it seemed like a cool spot to check out (Wave Organ). On the way, we passed a couple leaving the winning area and they told us they thought it was a hoax because they hadn't seen anyone with the ring and even the cameramen didn't seem to know who won. When we got to Wave Organ (really pretty spot btw), there were two other couples there, a couple photographers, and a couple of the game organizers. Theo and I were chilling on the rocks when suddenly we saw a guy from one of the couples bending down to pick up a box, saying something about how one of the organizers just dropped the box in front of him. The cameraman was right there and rolling as the guy pulled out the $15000 diamond ring, dropped to one knee and proposed :) Apparently he had been the first one there, but his girlfriend wasn't with him, so they were waiting for her to join him. Pretty awesome event!