Category: minutiae

Zed made three kinds of pesto on Sunday. The first is like pesto butter. We’ve just been smearing it on bread. It’s very nice. There’s one with roasted red peppers and one normal one. He got pretty frustrated with the blender when he was making it. He was shoving skewers into the bottom to try and dislodge stuck basil. I thought he was going to electrocute himself or something.

Last night was D&D. Kaya got killed again. So sad. Stupid dwarven waraxes and their x3 criticals. The party got her reincarnated. She came back as a Lizardfolk. So now she’s a pretty hideous reptilian humanoid… but! She got a lot of nice perks with the body swap, the best of which was a +5 natural armor bonus. R☆ pointed out that that’s like I saved over 50,000 gold pieces (what an amulet of natural armor +5 would cost). So I guess it’s not too bad? Also, the +2 strength and constitution is nice. Even though she went down a level, Kaya has more hit points than before.

Blogger made me upgrade my blog. That annoyed me. But I guess it didn’t change anything, so that’s good. I was worried that since I have some special customizations (thanks Barbara May!) that aren’t part of the standard Blogger/Blogspot templates, everything would get screwed up somehow.

If you’re a LiveJournal user and want this blog on your friends page, click here. Rosy set up an LJ RSS feed thingy for me.

R☆ and I made Bailey’s Irish Cream-flavored ice cream last night (this recipe [with some extra added vanilla] from Ice Cream Ireland). It’s a custard-style ice cream with eggs that needed tempering and such. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m hoping for goodness.

This ice cream recipe intrigues me. R☆ doesn’t think it sounds good. We bought a quart of cream, though, we’ll have to do something with it. Ooh, I should find something to do with my amazing Michigan dried cherries! Maybe something like this. Cherries, rum, and pepper… oh man, that sounds REALLY good. Oh yes, before I forget, J or Barbara May, can one of you send me your cayenne chocolate ice cream recipe?

(Not sure why I’m so gung-ho on ice cream when it’s the coldest it’s ever been in northern California.)

Zed and I went to Ramen Halu on Saturday night. It has gotten some really good reviews on places like Yelp and Chowhound and is touted as having the best ramen in the south bay. I was not impressed. The broth was highly uninteresting. We both agreed that we prefer Maru Ichi in Mountain View. I should give Ryowa another try. I liked the ramen at their Berkeley location, but the MV one was meh.

I bought a very cute party dress on Sunday. It is entirely too cute.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I have a costume out in my car, but I’m probably not going to wear it. The Press does not seem so into the holiday spirit. I bought some candy to put at the front desk. One piece has been taken so far. Yay.

I think we might get trick-or-treaters tonight! I haven’t seen any of those in AGES!

ETA: Okay, I just got back from lunch with Rosy. I did dress up! Rosy was a Viking, and I was Mandy, the misanthropic 10-year-old from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. We went to Chili’s. It was much fun. (I’m back in plainclothes now.)

And to answer my mom’s question, I bought a variety pack at Safeway this morning on the way to work (I figured I should have candy at the front desk). It’s a mixture of Butterfinger, Nestle Crunch, Baby Ruth, and chocolate Laffy Taffy.

Grr. You know what makes me mad? Er, one of the things? Establishments that overcharge on single-serving sodas. I went to Izzy’s Brooklyn Bagels today for lunch because I really like their egg salad (no celery, hooray!). An egg salad bagel is $3.25 (including tax). I decided to eat there and grabbed a Diet Coke. The total came to $5.42. I was all “Huh?” at the cashier, because dude, $2.19 for a twelve ounce can of soda is INSANE. Apparently that was right, though. So I went without soda.

The end. Good story, Sarah.

I made a cake this weekend. It’s based on the legendary Chocolate Blackout Cake from Ebinger’s Bakery in Brooklyn. It was pretty decent. Cakes are not really my strong suit, but I keep trying! I’ll post the recipe later today.

I have got to start bringing my lunch to work again. I’m spending too much money and eating too much crap. Starting Monday! I promise! It probably won’t be anything interesting for a while, but it should get me back in the game. I haven’t been doing any cooking or baking (you’ve probably noticed). Thankfully, I’m having a get-together next weekend that should, at the very least, require cookies.

I spent this last weekend at Ani-Magic in Lancaster (warning: exceptionally ugly website). The con was pretty lame, but hanging out with my friends and being costumed dorks was plenty fun. Lancaster is… well, calling it a pit is being pretty generous. One of my roommates brought a rice cooker and made onigiri each morning. We were well-fed, which was awesome, because the only things within walking distance of the hotel were a 7-11 and a Carl’s Jr.

Next weekend is FallFest! I’m really looking forward to this- last year was a blast. Food and wine and food and food and wine and chocolate and (hopefully) that lotion I really like but is way too expensive and Gray Goose and even more food. Oh, and another Riedel wine glass. (: