fires

We're fine, all told. We didn't learn anything until the radio turned itself on this morning, and the fires are far enough away that there are no adverse affects on our air or weather. Even the fierce gusts that they're talking about in Sylmar are barely an issue in Koreatown.

Both the LAFD and the LA Times have put together good maps to locate the fires. Neither map has our location on it, but if you zoom out, you can find downtown Los Angeles near where the 10, the 101 and the 110 meet. We're northwest from there, just south of the 101 at Vermont.


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monday spectaculars.

The first rains have come and brought what qualifies as winter in Los Angeles. We're staying busy with life and laughter, but a quick story for today: Given that we both have Mondays off, we gathered ourselves this morning to take a walkabout.

A lovely time, really: Just about 8 miles in total, and you can find the map here.

Back to prepare for teaching tomorrow.

food!

We may not have everything (like, I don't know, my thesis, or, occasionally, where to park the car), but we do eat well. There are popovers for breakfast, scrambled eggs with feta and fresh parsley snipped from Kirsten's potted herbs on our patio, occasional sourdough pancakes, and recent rotations of french toast. Our lunches are usually devoted to eating leftovers or recovering from the excesses of the morning, but our dinners have been consistently lovely.

Tonight, for example, this was dinner: Kirsten went to work in the afternoon, I hung around and wrote a little; about five, I wandered over to the subway, hopped up to Sunset and stepped into one of our local Jons (and while my initial enamoration - that's a real word, I promise, it means the process of falling in love - with the market has faded a little, it remains rock-solid for two-pound containers of feta, cheap tomatoes, and more varieties of pepper than you could shake a stick at) to pick up some stuff for dinner: a couple of pickling cucumbers for an appetizer, some pumpkin filling for pumpkin muffins later this week (I told you we eat well), and about two pounds of Roma tomatoes for tonight's pasta.

Tonight's recipe came by way of our friend Melina. She had us over for dinner a couple of nights before we skipped Chapel Hill, and made a remarkable pasta out of a sumptuous cook book titled On Top of Spaghetti. Being a pasta lover myself, I was in love, but for one reason or another, held off from buying the book until a recent foray onto Amazon just before dinner time resulted in a spur-of-the-moment cookbook. Go figure.

But the book is remarkable. Seriously. I've just finished dinner, and leafing through the cookbook is making me hungry again.

Without further ado, then, two recent recipes:

4 am spaghetti for one (but double for two):

4 ozs. spaghetti; 1 large garlic clove, peeled and trimmed; 1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil; 1/2 to 1 teaspoon powdered Esplette pepper or hot or sweet paprika; large pinch of dried oregano; freshly ground black pepper; pinch of sea salt.

1. Bring your water to a boil; generously salt the water; cook, stirring often. For the love of all that's holy, don't put oil in the water.
2. While the pasta is cooking, heat your pasta bowl (seriously. It's a new trick and I love it) in the oven or in warm water; once heated, rub the garlic clove all over the bottom of the bowl; pour in the olive oil; throw the herbs over; add the salt and pepper; the oil should warm up in the bowl and release its flavors; smile broadly, sip your wine.
3. Drain the pasta, leaving it a little wet; toss it into the bowl. Enjoy.

This next recipe is in honor of my dear friend Giovanni, who made me a version of it a year ago; little did I know I've been saying Matriciana when it should really be Amatriaciana. Go figure.

bucatini with fresh tomatoes, pancetta, and onion (I changed proportions to reflect the pancetta packet that Trader Joe's sells)

4 oz. pancetta; 5 tblsps. olive oil; 2 lbs. ripe roma tomatoes, chopped; 1 heaping cup diced onions; 1/2 tsp. sea salt; pinch of red pepper; 1 lb. spaghetti

1. Put the pancetta in a big saute pan over medium heat; toss often to keep it from sticking; let it render a little, lose some of its fat, and brown on the edges; lower the heat, add the olive oil, the tomatoes, the onion, and the salt (Don't worry about the excess liquid, it'll cook down). Stir in the red pepper; cover, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, until the onions are all the way cooked; taste and salt as necessary.
2. Boil your water; salt generously; cook, but before you drain, reserve about a cup of the water (another trick - the starchy water that is to be drained is really good for keeping the pasta moist and supple as you mix in the sauce). Once drained, toss the pasta into your saute pan with the sauce and mix until well-coated; as needed, add water to keep the pasta supple. Serve in heated bowls.

Like I said, we eat well.

a month gone by?

A couple of weeks back, I saw Kirsten working on putting some photos up from her trip to Arizona (and still have faith that she'll finally post them), but since then the two of us have been frightfully remiss in posting/writing/sharing much of anything about our respective lives. To be flip, I might beg off by saying That's life.

But perhaps some measures of repentance: We shared a light picnic dinner tonight (tomato, mozzarella and basil sandwiches on fresh-baked bread, a bottle of syrah) in Barnsdall Park tonight, sitting on the wide lawn while night stole its way over the city. At one point, Kirsten turned and looked north at the creased mountains, saying, It's like Hogwarts!

She was pointing out the Griffith Park Observatory, perched as it is on a shoulder and lit up in the deepening dusk. Set off as it is from the houses below, it has a curiously magical sense to it, a way of floating in the darkness. We didn't linger too long, as the evenings have begun to tend towards the chill damp that marks what passes for winter, and we didn't have a thing to light our books. So we slipped our way back down onto Hollywood, then down Vermont to the Metro station. A quick two stops home and then the last couple of blocks into our place.

It's still filling in, but we've mostly set ourselves up. A television - courtesy of my brother - sits shrouded in one corner of our dining and living room, and photos are still making their slow way onto the walls. We both take great pleasure in the coat and shoe rack that sit in our hallway, and Kirsten's plants are thriving on the patio. Rolls of muslin and a large tool box filled with fashion implements have made their way into our bedroom, but I'm not one to complain, as there's a kind of tidal rhythm to the papers that pile upon my desk (low tide as a trash can).

I wake early Tuesday mornings, and Kirsten slips out of the house before me Wednesday through Friday, but we're still managing to share most of our dinners. Teaching is going well enough for me, and though I don't want to speak too much for Kirsten, she's finding enough in her first two weeks of FIDM to keep herself busy. But all told, it's a nice life.

I'm still riding my bike, fixing it when need be, starting new blogs, finding new things to read, and keeping busy. Kirsten is, I think, not doing the same things but enjoying what life brings her. The kittens are well - they've discovered catnip, thanks to my mom's friends Stephen and Phillip - and so it goes. Hopefully, it won't take us another month to write something.

Uh, it's "Sah-wah-roh"...

This past weekend I braved many dangers. Heat over one hundred degrees. Prickly thorns and dusty soil. And certainly not least, I braved perhaps the most terrifying experience of all- the Los Angeles Freeway System. Cue ominous music. I must confess that driving in Los Angeles has been the stuff of my nightmares. But I survived. Navigating the craziness of on-ramps, merging lanes, exit lanes that aren't really exits (just thinking about it stresses me out), I proved to be a capable, if occasionally profane driver. Anyway, this pointless musing belongs elsewhere, but the story I'm telling takes me to the town of Tempe, Arizona and the Lovely Kate "Koala" Wicker. And since I'm out of time and am not really sure that this will be interesting anyway, let's just skip to the desert photos.


I'm sure that I had something to say about my trip when I began this post, but I think I shall end with the thought that it's wonderful to be able to visit friends.

Updates as a Bullet List

It's been better than a week since we last posted, and there have been a couple of small changes since then.

• Kirsten got a job! This does, unfortunately, mean that our idylls are coming to an end, but jobs (and the income you earn in said position) are kind of crucial. A necessary evil, I suppose.
  
• I start class and teaching next week. I have mixed feelings about the whole process: Learning is all well and good, but I'm being inflicted upon a bunch of undergraduates with an 8 a.m. discussion section. Luckily, it's only once a week for only ten weeks, so I'm optimistic about getting through. And given the fact that plenty of people start jobs at 8 in the morning, I don't actually have that much to complain about.
• There are plans afoot to head up the coast a little ways tomorrow for a quick camping trip. Hopefully photos will follow.
• Still getting settled in the neighborhood, but it's been a pretty easy adjustment. Our local Jons is a stellar place to buy produce (3 lbs. of Roma tomatoes for a dollar!), so we continue to eat pretty well.
• We've picked up a new game. While not as potentially vicious as Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne plays really well with just two people and finishes in just about an hour. We were playing several times a day but have since moderated our play, which is probably for the best.
  
• And as a bit of shameless promotion, I continue to blather on over at Tamerlane. Recent topics of interest have included biking, a planned mosque in Cologne, Germany, and more biking.

And this is about all that comes to mind. Hopefully new and exciting stories soon!

Apartment Lovin' (and our new favorite recipe)

Some time ago, we announced that we'd found an apartment in the crazy world of Los Angeles. This rumor is in fact true and I now have the photos to prove it. We moved in a few weeks ago, but due to our insistence on using pirated wireless, we haven't found the appropriate time to share those photos with the wide webbed world. The access is still pirated and the photos aren't earth-shattering, but it's a pretty cosy nest for us. 

Frieda and Diego have adapted ridiculously well. They can be found napping in any number of places- sunny windowsills, sun-filled chairs- or skittering around on the wood floors, trying their best to gain some traction. All told, not a bad life for a cat.

Timur and I are quite enjoying our time away from school, work, or really, any obligations whatsoever. We've sampled some of Los Angeles' many cultural attractions (more on that later), made forays into the San Gabriel mountains, and yes, taken a leaf from the cats' book and taken a nap in the sun. 

Timur continues to make progress on his master's thesis when he's not busy relaxing and I'm...well, I'm relaxing. And cooking. We've been eating quite well. Maybe too well...I'm currently on the hunt for the perfect popover recipe so that I can make homemade jam to put on the perfect popover. We have, however, found a new favorite recipe for a frittata. Try this one at home kids. It uses leftover pasta(!) of any shape that was served with a tomato sauce. 

Pasta Frittata from Cucina Fresca (Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman)

6-8 eggs

1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 Tbs. olive oil

1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped

2 c. cooked pasta with marinara or other red sauce

lightly beat the eggs with the parmesan, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Heat the oil in a small, nonstick, ovenproof skillet. Saute the garlic briefly. Add the pasta and heath through. Beat the eggs briefly again and pour over the pasta in the skillet. Lower the heat. Cook slowly, stirring frequently, until the eggs have formed small curds and the frittata is firm except for the top. To cook the top, place the pan under a hot broiler or into a preheated 400 degree oven until the frittata browns lightly. Removed the pan from the broiler or over. Let cool in the pan 1 or 2 minutes. Place a plate over the top of pan and invert the frittata onto it. Serves 4.

Channel Islands- In Bikini Briefs

Well, I have been most remiss in posting something about my trip to the Channel Islands. I have one word- AWESOME. I hope to add some text and some amusing anecdotes for entertainment purposes, maybe some natural history blurbs at a later date, but to whet the appetite, I present, with glee, a few photos...

First, the next installment in the "Where has our tent been?" series. You can just see Santa Cruz in the distance across the channel. I pitched the tent outside of the windscreen to see how it handled some serious wind. And the verdict is...B+/A-. I was really very very pleased with the tent and its response to the forces of nature. I think if I had reoriented just a touch, it would have been even better. One complaint- the plackets of the zippers on the fly sound like helicopters taking off...

Ayshe, Timur's mom, and I set off on a 14 mile (roundtrip) hike to the East Point on the, wait for it, east side of the island. We found a beautiful and deserted cove that was absolutely sensational. I wanted to make friends with the seals relaxing in a nearby kelp bed, but no such luck. 

Incidentally, the Crazy Creek Hexalite chair? Fan-freaking-tastic. I'm never leaving home without it again. Rolls up and fits in a water bottle pocket and weighs roughly a pound. 

Because I have just a touch of a masochistic side, I brought not just the digital camera, but also lugged along the old Nikon. I scanned in some of the black and white photos, shared here for your viewing pleasure. 

So, some final words perhaps? I'll be back and I hope to bring some of you with me. 

A Much Belated Update

We're both hopelessly behind on posting, but we can both beg off by saying it's been a busy couple of weeks. My mom returned from Turkey a couple of days after the earthquake in Los Angeles, and two days after that, I skipped off to go backpacking with my dad in the Sierras. I won't give anything away about Kirsten's trip to the Channel Islands with my mom, but have a couple of photos from the trip with my dad.

As far as trips go, this was perhaps one of the sloppiest planning jobs my dad and I have ever pulled off. We spent about twenty minutes after dinner one night planning our menu, he went to the grocery store, and we drove up 395 with a bunch of groceries melting in my trunk. All told, though, the trip turned out really well. We put in at North Lake Wednesday evening, made it over Piute Pass by dark (no small feat, that), and came back by way of Evolution Valley and Lamarck Col, returning to the car Sunday about noon.

As for life back in the city, we're moved in to our new place in Koreatown (a couple of brief thoughts from that here), and should hopefully have some photos up from there sometime soon.

So...no one is panicking...?

It was a quiet sort of morning. Lazy, one might even say. The marine layer of fog was still clinging to the sky as we drank our coffee. With not even a hint of foreboding we headed out on our first mission of the day- bank. And donuts. Do not forget the donuts. We certainly didn't. In fact, we decided to go for the donuts first. Primo's Donuts is a small little shop, established in 1956, that still has a delightfully un-corporate feel. Its fresh raspberry jam donuts and regular customers are far removed from the mass production and transcontinental shipping of corporate America. But I digress.
We returned from the bank (and the donuts!) and began a quest for tickets to the Hollywood Bowl the following Saturday. I was seated on the floor, Timur in the chair at the computer. We were laughing about the antics of one Eric Idle when the floor began to shimmy. Quake, if you will.
"Um...Timur...?" I said from my spot on the floor.
"That's an earthquake," he replied and moved to stand in the door frame as the shaking continued. It wasn't a particularly severe sort of shaking, more like the movement of jello on a plate when you carry it from the fridge to the table. We heard the plates and glasses rattling in the cupboards and Timur informed me that, yes, I too should stand in a doorway (this, as I discovered later, being the most structurally sound part of the house).
It was all over in twenty seconds or so, and I laughed with incredulity. An earthquake! A real one! They happen! This is why tall bookshelves should be bolted to the walls!
We turned on the news and then the real drama began. Our fearless anchors quickly informed us that they'd been subjected to at least thirty seconds of severe shaking, with the hanging lights swinging wildly over their desks. We soon found out that the magnitude of the earthquake was 5.8 and that it's epicenter was 2 miles from Chino Hills. (For the purpose of comparison, the May earthquake in China's Sichuan province measured a 7.9 on the scale, and no, it's not a linear scale.) Following their journalistic noses, our stalwart anchors, who I shall name Fran and Stan, soon had a caller from Chino Hills on the line. He told them of the thirty seconds of shaking and the dishes falling from his shelves and breaking on the floor. Stan informed the intrepid caller that they'd had a similar experience at the studio, some 15 miles from the epicenter. The plot thickened as they laid out bait for their innocent caller- was he scared? was there damage? could he see damage in his neighborhood? No bite. On to the the police reports.
"Well, no damage has been reported so far, but I'm sure there will be reports of interior damage, breaking lamps and such, soon," reported Fran with a breathless urgency. I might be exaggerating just a bit, but the news coverage quickly turned into a search for the story. You know, tears, drama, intrigue. Somewhere, someone is upset. Cut to Disneyland!!
The high angle camera showed people evacuating from the rides, and...music playing...?
"So," Stan asked their on-scene reporter, "no one is panicking?"
No. There were no screaming children or irate parents. There were no stampedes or threatened lawsuits. So much for the "Disneyland becomes playground for terror!" angle.
The USGS website offered far more actual data and information on the quake. Timur and I were soon engaged in their excellent maps and muted Fran and Stan. These devoted journalists had nothing to say when deprived of drama. Without an emotional hook, they failed to provide their viewer with anything other than the most rudimentary of information. The television news rides on a rush of emotion and adrenaline- actual data seems to play a very limited role on broadcast networks. Ah well, I'm sure their next story about the new celebrity babies was much more fascinating, but I was too interested in maps of peak ground acceleration to pay them much mind.

Coming soon...Culture in Southern California! Moving to Koreatown! Maybe even a recipe for a fantastic Lemon Sour Cream Cake!

Shameless Plug

So Timur has also been writing small things at his other blog as well. If anyone is curious, there's another recent post reflecting a little on the process of moving people and cats. It ends with this:

And when we got home from that first afternoon looking at the apartment and started looking at the map, I began to realize how much was in all directions from this new apartment. One phrase to describe the process might be learning to live in all directions. Driving in this city, it's often difficult to do that, as driving is almost always an act with a destination in mind. There is a place to go, and everything else is peripheral. The process of putting down roots is much more a radial act, in the sense of radiating from a central point. There's so much more of the city within an easy distance now, and as we put down our own roots, to sound out our own space, it might hopefully be an act of living in many directions and not just one.

If you're curious, please check it out.

The Journey West

Cloudy skies through Virginia, but it was too early in the morning to really think clearly anyways.
Besides, the kittens had bigger things to worry about: Why am I here? What is this bouncing that won't stop? And why won't anyone pay attention to me?
Storms in Missouri.
This is, by now, the second leg of our journey. Having left Indianapolis that morning, Kirsten took over the driving somewhere just east of Kansas City. There aren't many photos of her because she wouldn't let them be taken, so this is her ninja photo: stealthy.
Kansas was green, until it got dark. Then it wasn't so much fun.

After having driven the 22 hours from Indiana to Colorado, Diego was quite understandably in no mood to move quickly.
Timur faceplants into a bunch of cinquefoil and skypilot.
Timur and Judy wondering if they were going to ever catch Mike.
Nope. Here Mike has realized that he can indeed walk all the way down to the Eisenhower Tunnel from Loveland Pass, but is talked out of the project when everybody else realizes that this will entail them walking all the way down the wrong side of the ridge. A couple of days later, Kirsten and Timur set an ambitious day for themselves: Drive to 12,000 feet, park, and walk two miles (if you were feeling generous).
Product placement.
It's partly the case that Timur is a camera-whore; partly the case that it's Kirsten's digital camera and she's reluctant to let him take photos of her. But mostly Timur mugging for the camera. Again.
For those of you counting at home, this is a Mountain Hardwear Skyledge 2.1. It has 22 square feet of vestibule space, and roughly the same amount of space inside. It's a lovely tent - just a shade over 4 lbs. all packed - but not the sort of thing you want to recommend to big burly folk. It is, as one might say, a bit narrow in the shoulder. But a lovely little thing, and the view wasn't too bad for less than an hour's hike. Saddest. Kitten. Ever. After 11 days of clattering about Kirsten's parents' house in Evergreen, the kittens were a bit nonplussed at the whole small cage in a moving vehicle experience happening again.
Luckily, there was a ninja to keep them company.
The ninja in Glenwood Springs, where we stopped to have lunch with Betsy.

Mister ninja taking a rest on Timur's shoulder. This is still early on in the drive, where Timur feels fairly good about things.

Utah doesn't have rest stops - it has viewing points. Here, Timur is beginning to remember why he took three days to drive the stretch from Colorado to California last year. The ninja is trying to convince him that it's a great idea to keep driving.
After all, a 16 foot moving truck is nimble, and once it gets enough momentum going downhill, it's remarkably fuel efficient.
And driving through Utah is a pretty scenic experience.
Kirsten took over driving in Salina, leaving Timur free to try to snap some shots of the evening sun. The nice thing about southwest Utah is that everything is quite literally downhill from there as you come off the Colorado Plateau. Problem is that that downhill doesn't actually mean the distance you have to drive is any less. Kirsten hauled the stretch from Salina to Vegas, and Timur drove the last short four and a half hours from Vegas to LA. Besides being stopped by the CHP at the agricultural inspection station and having our blueberries confiscated by an earnest officer at 2 in the morning, that last leg went as well as a leg can go when you've been driving for eighteen hours. And at least traffic was light at that time of night.

Coming soon: stories from Koreatown - we move in to our place on the 15th!