Starry Wisdom

I recently went to Oahu with Mackenzie. This was my first time on that particular island, save for some layovers at HNL while spending time on Maui and Kauai in the past. We were there for six nights.

This is just some highlights of the trip – I genuinely intend to post one or more detailed entries with pictures, but for right now, here are brief high points:

• KCC Farmers Market – Saturday morning 7:30-11AM (yes it’s early, but it’s HOT later in the day…) Lots of fresh fruits and veggies, and also a LOT of prepared food (and coffee) for breakfast.
• The Bus – From the NW side of waikiki (near Hilton Hawaiian Village) it’s a 25 minute ride to KCC, and about 45 minutes to Hanauma Bay. Having a car for part of your trip is a good idea, but you really don’t need it the whole time, and not driving to these places is a *good* idea!.
• Kailua – 12 miles away from popping Waikiki is sleepy Kailua, home of a wonderful sandy beach, and some good, cheap food. Highly recommend a visit.
• Pearl Harbor Historic Sites – Fantastic.
• Sunset Drinks at Sarento’s Top the I – awesome view of the sunset from the edge of Waikiki. Note that in the summer, the sun sets after happy hour, but it’s worth it for the view.
• Alan Wong’s Restaurant – situated on the third floor of an office building, with a view of a street, this was nonetheless the best dinner we had in Hawaii. It was surprisingly NOT the most expensive dinner (that honor went to the sunset cruise we took the first night), but it WAS the dinner with the most celebrity sitings we had (Masi Oka)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so first the good news – which is the update on my previous post. Yeah, it was the wireless router, and the new one works perfectly. Yay!

Bad news – I’m falling apart. My ankle had been bothering me since mid December, and I finally managed to get in to see the specialist this Thursday. He said it’s tendinopathy, probably aggravated by some extra bone – remnants of me breaking my ankle nearly twenty years ago. I’m on Aleve for 10 days and I have a pretty fancy ankle brace that I’m to wear for 6 weeks. Hopefully I’ll be better by the time of the followup.

Of course, it doesn’t end there. Yesterday morning, as I got up from lacing and buckling up the brace my back decided to spasm. So I’ve been laid up, unable to stand straight and barely able to walk since then. My weekend plans are pretty much ruined. I tried to go to the urgent care place near my apartment today (to maybe get muscle relaxer or the such), but alas, they are closed on weekends.

Oh well, at least my ankle is feeling pretty well.

Well, it’s actually fruitcake, but that word has some bad connotations, thanks to the radioactive studded substance we find at the grocery store this time of year. For the past 6 or so years, I’ve been baking fruitcake annually around Thanksgiving. Around Thanksgiving because it takes several weeks for the cake to mellow and age (with many spritzes of brandy) before it is ready to be eaten. This way it is ready just on time for Christmas gifting or parties.

This is basically Alton Brown’s recipe from I’m Just Here For More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking, which is subtly different from the Good Eats recipe from the episode “It’s a Wonderful Cake” (although I do recommend watching that episode, you can find it pretty easily on Youtube).

Fruitcake
(Makes one 9″x5″ or two 6″x3¾” loaf pans)

Note: The original recipe calls for the single larger loaf. But I had come across a pair of smaller loaf pans, and it turns out the smaller size is perfect for gifting, and doubles your unit yield. Instead of doubling the recipe, prepare multiple batches of the dried fruit mix, as it is hard to split into proper portions.

1. Mix together dried fruits, ginger, zests, cloves, allspice and rum – you can do this in the pot you will be using the next day (see step 2). Soak overnight.



2. The next day, stir in the apple juice, cider, butter and sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring every few minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes



3. Remove from heat and cool ½ hour until it is room temperature. Stir in the eggs.
4. Put oven rack to lower middle position and preheat to 325°F. Either butter and flour your loaf pan(s) or spray with “Pam for Baking”.
5. Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Stir in the pecans.
6. Pour the spiced fruit mixture into the bowl and fold in until it is just combined. Do not overmix.
7. Put the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake for 1 hour. Check for doneness by poking a skewer into the middle of the loaf. If it comes out clean, it is done baking, otherwise let it go a few minutes more before testing again.



8. Set pan(s) on cooling rack and spritz top with brandy. Cool completely before turning out onto wrack and spritzing with more brandy.
9. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and then foil.
10. To age, unwrap and spritz with brandy and re-wrap every 2 or 3 days for 2 weeks, and then once a week for the next two weeks. After one month of aging and spritzing the cake is ready to be eaten.

Serving suggestion: toast lightly and spread with marscapone cheese.

This proposition is pretty much everything I abhor about the proposition system. 10 years ago, Proposition 10 was passed, which created a tobacco tax to fund early childhood development programs. Now, only a bit more than 10 years later, the legislature is telling the electorate it wants to raid this fund, clearing out the current savings, as well as using current revenue for general fund purposes. Of course, it is claimed that the money will be used to help fund children;

Proposition 1D Protects Children’s Services Funding. Helps Balance State Budget
Temporarily provides greater flexibility in funding to preserve health and human services for young children while helping balance the state budget in a difficult economy.

But if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

The budget is broken, and it needs to be fixed, but robbing Peter to pay Paul isn’t the way to do it. The state needs new sources of revenue (not just new ways of shifting spending), and this can only be accomplished with new taxes – oh which the legislature is doing, but underhandedly, since they don’t require voter approval, but imposed in a very unfair way. With income and sales taxes as the most profitable revenue sources, the budget is going to always be doomed to follow whatever fate consumers are feeling. Without a strong corporate and in particular corporate real estate tax base, there is no real solution.

Until I see a real effort of compromise from the state GOP, I’m not going to take anything of this sort seriously.

I’ve posted the transcription of the journal I wrote while in Italy, via back dated posts. I suggest starting at the bottom and working up, here

I have completed National Novel Writing Month 2008, two days early:

I backed 3 horses (financially).

The first horse won, and won big (Barack Obama).

The second horse lost, not hugely, but soundly (No on Prop 8).

The third horse is still undetermined (Al Franken in MN).

Obviously it could have gone better. But sometimes you need to take stock and be glad for what you got.

I’m always going to remember where I was when Barack Obama was declared the 44th President of the United States of America – The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. And I hope to always remember watching Obama’s speech on the big screens there. Just before Obama spoke, my brother called me from Grant Park in Chicago. It must have been amazing time to be there, although for the majority of Americans (ok, 52-53% is a majority!) it was a great time to be anywhere.

I fully expect to be disappointed by a lot of what Obama does over the next four to eight years. I have no delusions on him being perfect. But I do believe he was the best man for the job at hand, and the country will be a better place under him. I just have to hope my belief is not unfounded.

Look, most of you probably know my politics, and I might have even tried to convince someone to vote for something or other. Well, we’re past that now. Just make sure to vote, it’s a right you shouldn’t take for granted.

(Still, if you are undecided, here are my suggestions:

• POTUS: Barack Obama
• California Propositions: Yes on 1A, No on 8 and No on 4. The rest I don’t have strong feelings about

)

Who is my landlord now? Is it the old landlord? I tend to think now, since there is still an auction scheduled for the house, even though it was pushed out a month. Is it the bank who holds the mortgage? I think so. But I don’t know who this bank is. And I think they don’t know I exist. So what’s the upshot of all this.

1) I am obligated to pay rent, or I violate the terms of my lease, evidently. And since I wasn’t told otherwise by anyone, I paid the old landlord (but there is a good record of this payment), I’m sure this tickles him pink.

2) There is no one to call for basic repairs. In particular the dimmer switch for the track lighting in my room burned out last week. I have a table lamp, but not having a light switch near the door is quite a drag. I actually bought a new switch, and spent time figuring out which circuit the switch was on, but when I opened up the workbox, well the wires made no sense, and it was just a spaghetti mess. I didn’t feel like hacking around to get it to work, so I sealed it back up. So, the upshot is, I have no working lightswitch, and no one to MAKE fix it for me. I guess I will call the tenant union tomorrow and ask them what is the right thing to do in this situation.

3) GRRR ARGH!

Courtesy of livejournal’s dixieflatline:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favourite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Thank you very much,” Zefla said, holding one long leg out in front of her and looking at the bruise. “Wish I could say the same for your car.”

“Even so,” Sharrow said, frowning at her drink.

Now what was absurd!