eG Foodblog: adoxography - transiting Venus and Taylorville driveby

[bleudauvergne]

Oh my GAWD.

Edited June 8, 2004 by bleudauvergne (log)

[bleudauvergne]

I made Masala Chai for myself. I've been playing around with mixing the spices and tea myself and today's was very tasty - assam tea, cloves, star anise, cinnamon stick, ginger and plenty of cardamom.

Hmmm, that sounds pretty good. Can you tell me more about Masala Chai? Where did you first have it? How long have you been mixing it yourself?

[ronnie_suburban]

How nice that the trout was wild and caught by someone you know. True, we don't have indigenous seafood in the midwest, but we do have access to plenty of great fish. Does your friend hook you up fairly often?

BTW, those pics of the cinnamon rolls are just plain cruel.

=R=

[Rebel Rose]

Oh, Lordy. In one day you've hit on rainbows, rolls, and cardamom--all things I love! I'm just checking in after missing a few days of foodblogs, and bouncing back and forth between here and nessa's blog. What torture!

[Bicycle Lee]

We can call this a twice in a lifetime event, since it will happen again in June of 2012.

There's a lot of big happenings in the heavens in 2012...I'm glad to hear of another.

Good blog, looking forward to the rest.

[adoxograph]

Best thing about coming in at 5am? Leaving at noon and having lunch at home. And a nap. Too bad that's still an hour and a half away. I've actually got some great transit photos I'll post later. For those of you watching Chicago news, if you see any live-from-Chicago footage of the transit, I was working the telescope that provided the live feed. Of course, they didn't tell me that until I'd been futzing around for half an hour. After that tidbit was revealed, no one else wanted to do it, afraid they would hit the wrong button and send the telescope whizzing away from the Sun. Wusses.

The brain has started spooking in Speanerisms. Soon I shall have a REAL CUP OF COFFEE.

The best part about the Adoxographian Cinnamon Roll Appreciation Society is that those are the raw rolls you are looking at - they look, er looked much better cooked. I suppose I should have warned you low carb types. Oh well. However, I shall endeavor to post a recipe.

Bleu, I first had Masala Chai, called simply "chai tea", at an Indian restaurant I went to as a kid. Inspired by this thread I started mixing up my own about, oh, two weeks ago. :) I have tasted many good and badbadbadevilpowdered masala chai variations, so I just started playing with the blend. I think I sweat clove juice after my first batch. "With a light hand" would have perhaps been more prudent.

Ronnie, I get my fish hookup about once a month, sometimes more depending on the catch. I don't ask about getting more, I figure I'm lucky to get what I do. That trout was good.

Dude, I am so having a tunafish sandwich for lunch when I get home. Maybe.

[adoxograph]

Oh dear.

I just realized I forgot to feed the cats before I left this morning.

[nessa]

Might I suggest tossing in an offering of fresh fish before you cross the threshold?

[suzilightning]

Oh dear.

I just realized I forgot to feed the cats before I left this morning.

don't worry - they will let you know about it

can you continue the introductory story, please, please?

you are inspiring me to try to create my own chai. thanks for that link.

[adoxograph]

Well, I'm more awake now.

I was about 50 yards away from our apartment when I witnessed a car accident. I called it in, and luckily neither party was 1. severely injured or 2. me. There was another witness besides myself, and both of us thought that the person in the car that caused the accident was totally going to make a run for it. Luckily, that didn't happen. However, this accident happened in the middle of an intersection on the town line. It's 86 degrees right now with 65% humidity, and we got to wait for a good long while until it was decided whose jurisdiction it was. I was right.

Moral of the story? Don't get into accidents in intersections on town lines. Oh and side impact airbags are a good thing.

So, no need for a cup of real coffee for a while. Tuna fish sandwich? That's another story. Oh, and the cats are fed, and are attempting to become two dimensional. Or fuzzy puddles. One of the two.

The excitment never stops!

[flip6577]

Great blog!

It's nice to hear about our sweet home Chicago.

btw I'm guessing, but was the accident was on Thorndale? The one I got stuck behind was.

Flip

[Lady T]

C-rolls like those (damn, they're gorgeous!) work superbly with a Swedish limpabrot recipe as a base, if you ever want to try another cardamom-scented variant. Yell if you want the recipe anytime.

Ehhh...I kinda thought there'd be a crowd for the transit, but 900!? Yowzah. Glad to know you were the one working the 'scope with the view I saw on TV, though!

Spooking in Speanerisms? By any chance, or maybe no chance whatever...are you a reader of Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series? A character in one of those books (the fifth or so, as I recall: Lady Slings the Booze) does indeed start speaning Spookerly at a particular point of stress. I recommend the series, in any case; mighty fine fun even for folks who don't normally do science fiction.

Much fun in this blog!

[adoxograph]

Lady T gets the literary reference prize! (You even got the correct book in the series.) I'd love to try another variant, send it along.

No, the accident wasn't on Thorndale - but close. Devon and Nerge. When the officer asked me where I live, I got to point across the street and say, "There."

[ms. victoria]

adoxograph, what a wonderful, lovely blog. I have had to pry myself away from eGullet for a few days for work type things and I got to come back to this. And now I am going to have to make cinnamon rolls this weekend.

[jgarner53]

Oh my, those cinnamon rolls look divine! If you bring those into work, I can only imagine that they're busy building a shrine to you at this very moment, all the better for to worship you.

Cat as fuzzy puddle. I have one of those.

[adoxograph]

It's 4 am, and what are you holding? These...

When I got to the Planetarium, it was just before dawn. There was a ton of cars in the lot, but this was my first view.

then I went around the corner...

One of our guards was counting visitors and stopped at 909, which was not at all what we expected - we were thinking 50. Seriously hardcore. But then the sun started to rise, and we were all distracted.

You can't look at the sun directly, of course, so most people were viewing via projection, or with eclipse glasses. I was in charge of the live feed telescope, so I got to watch in the video camera screen. The black spot on the sun is Venus - for those of you who have never seen a transit before, this is a huge spot compared to Mercury.

It really was beautiful morning. Before the sun completely rose out of the haze, you could almost glimpse Venus with the naked eye, as long as there weren't astronomers around to lecture you. :)

After the transit at the late hour of 6:30 am, the news crews were still around. I got to hear the weather report firsthand - which was great since I got advance warning that it would be ridiculously hot today.

On the left side of the picture is the telescope I was using. I was in the Doane Observatory, but we couldn't use the scope in the Doane, because the sun was too low in the sky - the scope couldn't get down low enough for good viewing, so I got to track it by hand. The power, mwah hahahahaha.

So there's some transit pictures for those of you who didn't get to see it. Now, back to the food!

[adoxograph]

Enough astronomy! How about a tuna sandwich?

I call this picture "What cat toy?".

Tuna sandwiches are one of those food items that I believe can only be properly enjoyed at home. Really, now, ask yourself, where do you consistently get the best tuna sandwiches - home or out?

I always doctor mine. The only real constant in my tuna sandwiches is LIGHT MAYO. I hate hate hate goopy mayonaisse laden tuna. Today's sandwich included sliced pickled onion for crunch, lemon, Tabasco. Havarti with dill and lettuce on the sandwich and the wheat bread was a loaf I made a couple days ago.

The chips are Tim's wasabi potato chips -an Sarcasmo-induced impulse buy at Cost Plus. Normally, there wouldn't be chips around here. Our budget is such that since I do the shopping and really, I don't much like "junk food" we don't often have such things. But hey, they had 2 vanilla beans for 6 dollars. I was feeling thrifty. :) Sarcasmo likes the chips, but they are too spicy for him. I've found him, his hand in the bag, frothing wildly at the mouth saying, "Please eat these so I'll stop!"

They go very nicely with the tuna, I have to say. I'm thinking, crumble these up and roll a tuna steak in them - that's got potential.

Now as for dinner, you know those days where the cosmic forces align, all the gods and angels together saying, "Today! Today is the day that you grill outside!"

Today is one of those days. We have no grill. Stupid apartment with no balcony. So now, I need to decide if we turn on the stove in the hot house (the cats melted hours ago) or we go out to eat.

Any votes? :)

[hillvalley]

What a great shot! You should frame that.

I vote for going out. Don't bother turning on the stove. You put in your time with those rolls.

Oh those rolls. They look divine.

[Jinmyo]

Enough astronomy! How about a tuna sandwich?

I call this picture "What cat toy?".

Heh.

[ronnie_suburban]

Wonderful pics! Thanks for sharing them. I especially loved What cat toy?

=R=

[NulloModo]

What type of tuna do you buy/use for those sandwiches? Standard bumblebee, or some exotic Italian brand packed in EVOO, something else entirely?

[adoxograph]

The warrior climbed down the hill, following an obvious trail of broken twigs, footprints, and partially gnawed leaves. He found her near the base of the hill, considering a stalk of asparagus.

"Well, I could pan roast them, a little balsamic..." she muttered to herself.

"What is up with you and the vegetables, already?" The warrior shouted. She looked up, startled at his outburst. After all, he was usually so sterotypically stoic. "You aren't fooling anyone." he continued, "You know you like meat."

She pointed up at the sky, "Look, Transit of.... damn."

"Nice try."

She sighed. "I never said I didn't like meat."

"So what's the deal, you big wuss? Take it like a man and eat bacon."

"You really want to know why I don't eat meat?"

"Not particularly."

"Ok, well, see, I have a number of allergies, mostly to synthetic things, like acrylic..."

"I said I didn't care."

"and I found out that some of the hormones, pesticides, etc exacerbated my allergies, worsening my bouts of things like psoriasis, swollen throats.."

"Still not caring..."

"Now, I could eat organic meats and veggies no problem. The problem is in budget. I can afford organic veggies, I can't regularly afford organic meats. So, I made the decision to cut out the meat. So, since I won't compromise for lesser quality meats, you can say my diet is based on extreme food snobbery."

"Lalalalalalalalala."

"Ok, I'm done."

"You eat fish, you big wuss hypocrite."

She looks down at the ground, contrite. "I really like fish." then she considers it for a moment. "And I eat wild fish. Not like they give them injections."

It's the warrior's turn to roll his eyes. "I can't believe you gave up meat by choice."

"Well I still have it, maybe a couple times a year. At restaurants where I know I'm dealing with high quality meat. But you know what? I really like vegetables, I always have. You know, you should really try some of this arugula."

The warrior snorts in disgust, and then turns away from her, almost stomping as he tromps off into the woods.

"Come on! There's so much variety! I bet there's something you like!"

A voice called out from the woods. " Yeah, maybe. If it's cooked with pork!."

[adoxograph]

So, we looked at the cats, looked at each other, looked outside, and decided to go out for dinner. We weren't feeling fancy, so decided to head over to Thai House in Schaumburg.

Thai House used to be called Kumpaar, and it was great Thai food at reasonable prices. Then, we saw the sign in the window saying it was for sale. We were sad. When we saw it was re-opening as "Thai House", we were more sad. A few weeks ago, we were told that it had a new owner, but the same chef. We rejoiced, with skepticism.

Tonight, we decided to see what had changed.

Before, the first thing that sold me on the place were the spring rolls. Wonderful rolls of the not-fried variety, filled with veggies, shrimp, tofu and, surprise of surprise, fresh mint and cilantro. So, that was a must have tonight. I was also a big fan of their spicy squid, and that seemed exactly what my stomach needed. Sarcasmo wanted something a little spicy, a little chickeny and decided on what was called Ram Chicken - chicken and broccoli topped with their "special spicy peanut sauce".

The first change we noticed was the decor. The layout of tables was the same, but now the walls were decorated with the kind of knickknacks that either suggested someone's country-style home, or screamed "YOU ARE IN A THAI RESTAURANT! LOOK! ETHNICITY!". However, we were soon distracted by the music.

"Hey, that's from Xanadu."

A few songs later. "It's Olivia Newton-John's Best of Greatest 'Hits'. And you have to put 'hits' in quotes."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you totally do."

I'm not sure what amused him more, the music, or the fact that I knew all the words to every song. The spring rolls broke into my superlative rendition of 'Suddenly' from the Xanadu soundtrack. I really need to see that movie again, it's so bad.

The presentation was better than it had been, but no shrimp, no cilantro, no mint. Bean sprouts, tofu and cucumber. OK, but we still made sad faces. Not even "Let's Get Physical" could cheer me up.

Entrees came soon after. First his:

which turned out to be chicken pieces on broccoli, topped with satay sauce and sesame seeds. Not at all spicy. He thought it was ok, but still fished out a gristly bit during "Hopelessly Devoted to You." Then, he started talking about how he wanted Chicken Littles from the KFC across the street. He left half the broccoli behind.

My spicy squid

looked a little different than before. It had been chunks of squid, as opposed to the scored pieces that now graced my plate. The taste, however was the same. Good level of heat, nice pepper pieces, lemongrass and ginger adding to the flavor. Sarcasmo was fascinated by the squid. We found a Thai place within walking distance while Kumpaar was closed. Most of their dishes are ok, but their squid appetizer is fascinatingly tender. This squid wasn't as melting, but it certainly wasn't tough either.

Overall, though, I'm disappointed. It was the little fresh details that made Kumpaar great, and it seems those may be gone. Will I go back, probably, but not without the wave of nostalgia that only Olivia Newton John's 'Hits' can bring.

One question lingers - anyone know who ate radishes on Fraggle Rock? We argued about it over dinner, but I need sleep more than to watch the videos.

[Behemoth]

Didn't all the Fraggles eat radishes? I can't believe I am answering this.

I had that type of spring roll for the first time today, at a new place in Champaign. I thought it looked like a chain but I could swear the woman behind the counter was the one from the old thai place down the street. I have to admit, I wasn't crazy about the rolls -- I was expecting something more like the vietnamese ones, which I adore. These were more like Lumpia.

[HKDave]

One question lingers - anyone know who ate radishes on Fraggle Rock? We argued about it over dinner, but I need sleep more than to watch the videos.

The Fraggles ate the radishes.

The Doozers built with radishes.

The Gorgs grew the radishes.