French Toast

(The Best Recipe)

1 large egg
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for frying
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp table salt
4 – 5 slices day-old challah bread (3/4-inch-thick) or 6 to 8 slices day-old sandwich bread

Heat 10- to 12-inch skillet (preferably cast-iron) over medium heat for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, beat egg lightly in shallow pan or pie plate; whisk in butter, then milk and vanilla, and finally sugar, flour, and salt, continuing to whisk until smooth. Soak bread without oversaturating, about 40 seconds per side for challah or 30 seconds per side for sandwich bread. Pick up bread and allow excess batter to drip off; repeat with remaining slices.

Swirl 1 tablespoon butter in hot skillet. Transfer prepared bread to skillet; cook until golden brown, about 1 minute 45 seconds on first side and 1 minute on the second. Serve immediately. Continue, adding 1 tablespoon butter to skillet for each new batch.

This month’s “Cake Day” at work is not cake, but soups. I was a BAD FOODIE and decided not to bring one in. The apple-rutabaga soup is too much prep hassle to make for my coworkers (plus there’s the bitch step of sieving it, since my blender is not as awesome at pulverizing as Barbara May’s is). Potato-leek is an unattractive grey color and basically an unexciting soup (as is chicken noodle). The chicken tortilla soup separates into layers (plus, I think it’s a little too spicy for general consumption). My attempts at pasta e fagioli have either had mediocre flavor or set up into an un-soup-like consistency (no links for the first time I tried it, I never posted it). Let us not speak of the time I attempted ribollita. Matzoh ball soup is… well, I make it from a mix, there’s no challenge there. Cream of roasted cauliflower, also unattractive. I was unimpressed with my attempt at making cream of mushroom soup, although I should really try that again, since I screwed it up the first time. Hm, what other soups have I made? The creamy scallion-mushroom soup isn’t great (although a pretty color). Oh! The lentil soup! That was GOOD. I could have made that.

I wonder if the sweet potato gratin dish could be made into a good soup. Sweet potatoes, cream, maple, chipotle… sounds promising to me.

Also, I was too busy to make soup- we started our new campaign last night! My new character is a rogue named Kaya Marquette. (Terrible name, isn’t it?) I came up with a pretty decent backstory for her, but I can’t divulge it here. I want to keep it a secret from the other players until it comes up in story. (Just in case they read my blog- long shot, I know).

Did you know about this? I certainly didn’t know about this.

I went over to Sara’s yesterday for sewing fun, and we stopped by this Indian grocery near her house to get samosas (which were ridiculously good- I ate three). Anyway, I found all these Pillsbury products in the freezer cases. I bought one Pillsbury product (Indian bread stuffed with peas and paneer) and two Deep products (malai kofta and a spiced layered bread). Very intriguing stuff. I was going to eat one of them for dinner last night, but then I didn’t (good story). I’ll probably eat one tonight unless I go out with the MV crew.

Oh, speaking of my Mountain View peeps, R☆ and Jer finished the table yesterday. Now we can be slightly less paranoid about spilling stuff on it. Pictures! Unfinished and finished. It is very big and awesome. We have lots of space for mapping. No, it’s nothing like the over-the-top gaming table I linked to before (nor do we have anything as high-tech crazy as this one), but it makes gaming much more comfortable now that we’re not crammed around a rectangular table.

I went to Wondercon yesterday in San Francisco. I met up with some friends and we traipsed around the dealers’ room in search of merchandise. I was looking for Pinky:st dolls (which I found), and TeapotGirl was looking for a Booster Gold action figure (which she didn’t find). We also ended up buying some Voodoo Baby dolls– I got this one for Barbara May.

The four of us (TeapotGirl, John, Barbequed, and I) had lunch over in the Metreon at a restaurant called LJ’s Martini Club and Grill. Apparently it’s moving locations soon. John and TeapotGirl got pizzas, Barbequed had salmon, and I had duck ravioli (with roasted garlic cream sauce and forest mushrooms). The sauce was fabulous, and the mushrooms very tasty. The ravioli were slightly less impressive. I found a small bone in one; that kind of sucked. I think the sauce would have been better on maybe a more basic cheese tortellini or something. Ooh, or make a soup out of the sauce and mushrooms. Nah, that’s be too rich and gross after about three bites. It was really good, though.

We got dessert, too. Creme brulee and a flourless chocolate cake. Debbie got a lovely tawny port.

LJ’s was overpriced but good. Since it’s moving to (I’m guessing) a less convenient location, I can’t see myself going back. That garlic cream sauce was just magnificent, though. Mm!

From Eurogamer.net (full article here):

And then there’s cosplay.Boy, there’s cosplay.

To understand this aspect, you have to understand that Katamari Damacy occupies a special place in the world. Caught somewhere between Japanese eccentricity and videogames, it’s piqued the interest of a particular breed of dresser-up, and they’ve risen to the challenge of becoming a centimetre-high character with an admirable disregard for physics. Without a shadow of a doubt, the talent of this crowd was exemplified by a brilliant photographic post to Livejournal with the title “Private Photoshoot of Liddo and Sarah’s Katamari Fantasy Night”. There’s plenty of less aesthetically pleasing replications of the Prince and King, though.

I love that it’s been seven months and we’re still getting linked. Hurray!

Until I start cooking again, it’s restaurant reviews for you!

I went out with the MV crowd (well, there were only four of us this time) to Tsunami Sushi last night. We tried to go to Tomi, but it was too damn crowded. If you’ve ever walked along Castro Street in Mountain View and looked in the windows, Tsunami is the restaurant that has Finding Nemo on an endless loop.

Decor: Very nice. They’ve got a tatami room in the back for larger parties.

Service: Good. Drinks weren’t refilled with any speed, but the food came out quickly. They gave us free dessert (tempura bananas). One of our water glasses was cracked, but it was replaced quickly. We ordered agedashi tofu “for the table,” and it came out with three pieces, which caused annoying division of tofu blocks with chopsticks.

Food: Pretty decent. The miso was good but nothing special. Jer said the pickles in the seaweed salad were good. The salmon was really tasty, the snapper and eel less so. And hey, free dessert (which came in four pieces, so they did notice eventually).

Price: Too high, in my opinion.

Conclusion: Probably wouldn’t go there again. But on a Monday night, when Sono is closed, Tomi is full, and you don’t feel like driving to one of the other million sushi places in Mountain View, it works.

Oy, I really have to start cooking again! I’ve been going out to dinner too damn much. Or skipping dinner in favor of some popcorn. I’m lacking inspiration, sadly.

The family got together on Saturday night to go to Nora’s Cafe for some French bistro fare. Their steak frites is excellent. J, Barbara May, and I got it with the pepper sauce, while Mom opted for a bernaise sauce (which she said was good but only room temperature). Dad got mussels, which he and I thought were a little overdone. Oh, and the fries weren’t hot enough, which was sad, because they had a really nice flavor. Although the pate on the charcuterie plate was good, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the rest of the meats. However, the green salads that accompanied everything were really good. Very flavorful arugula and the like. Barbara May got some French onion soup (over there, I hear they just call it “onion soup”), but I didn’t try it. I hope it was good.

The desserts were kind of a mixed bag, too. I got the very disappointing Fraise, which didn’t actually have any strawberries at all, just an overly sweet gel.  J and Barbara May got profiteroles, which were tough. Mom got Rhum, which was rum raisin ice cream (her favorite) with whipped cream and what seemed like a fifth of rum in it. Seriously, this was über-boozy. If I were to get dessert there again, I’d get the Norvegienne, which is vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and Grand Marnier. I was debating between that and the Fraise, and I totally made the wrong choice.

However, the excellent steaks and yummy salads really helped to make up for the shortcomings in the rest of the meal. I would go there again, but I’d just order more carefully.

I went over to Jer’s yesterday to watch the Super Bowl. And by “watch the Super Bowl,” I mean “sit on the couch and play Dawn of Sorrow on Jer’s DS while he watches the game.” A couple hours after it was over, I had to ask Jer who won. I really was not paying attention at all. We got takeout phô. It was decent.

I had forgotten how much fun sixth level was. Dude, two attacks! It was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, we’re ending our time in the AU world for a while, so I won’t get to have the ceremony performed for my nifty new feat or my hawk animal companion until we pick things back up again.

We’re starting a new campaign, The Shackled City. This is an adventure that takes place in regular 3.5 D&D. It’s supposed to take us from first to twentieth level. Damn. That is going to be a LONG time. Jer’s DMing. We’re going to roll up characters next week. Rob’s pulling for us to be a party of clerics. I’m not entirely sure why, but I don’t really want to be one. I thought I’d try something new and go rogue. The hard thing about this is that rogues, with their mass of skills, are generally the ones to do a lot of actual RPing, not just “I hit it with my sword!” playing. I kind of suck at thinking in character, so hopefully this will push me to become a better player.

What’s this blog about? Food? Oh, yeah.

Um, we’re going to Fiesta del Mar Too for dinner. I haven’t been there in forever and a day. I need some adobo. And tons of their salsa. Yum.

We’ve been getting pizza and wings for D&D from Fast Pizza in Mountain View. Their wings are a little anemic, and the pizza crust is nothing to write home about, but damn, they have some nice sausage! Big chunks (not the rabbit-poo variety) and a hit of fennel. I love fennel. They’re decently priced and relatively fast, so I’d recommend them if you’re in the area.