So I’ve been biking in the area around the University of San Diego for a while. At the bottom of the hill is Fashion Valley mall, and I tend to keep my bicycling to the West (towards the Ocean) from there. There’s mostly strip malls to the East, so there’s not a lot of point in heading that way, and the only route that direction is taking Friar’s road. Friar’s road has bike lanes, and is great for getting back and forth except where it hits the 163, where it turns into a gigantic mess of entrance and exit ramps, with the bike lane doing it’s usual disappear-and-reappear act all over the place. So I wanted to find away around that. It turns out there are two options: the on-road way and the off-road way.
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So we’re planning a trip to Barcelona and I’m wondering about the feasibility of bicycling around the city. The buses and metro are supposed to be ubiquitous, and we’re all about walking, so it may not make much sense to bother renting some bikes. That being said, in my research I found some advice from the Barcelona City Council’s get around Barcelona by bike: Safety page.
However, for the majority of age groups (those between 18 and 50), it has been statistically proved that cars represent a much larger overall risk than bicycles and that the positive effects of cycling on health and quality of life greatly exceed the years of life lost in accidents.
I have to wonder if the last bit is considerably less startling in Spanish.
Last spring I interned at the University of San Diego’s help desk. They were trying to figure out how help desks of comparable colleges and universities operated, looking at such things as hours open, student versus staff technicians, etc. So I researched what schools would be similar, based mostly on undergraduate size and then wrote a survey and sent it out whomever looked like the appropriate contact. I wrote up the results in a short article, which I’ve just posted:
This cocktail is actually what led me into researching a somewhat distant variant, the Monkey Gland. I first came about them both in Dr. Cocktail’s very enjoyable book “Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails.” The ingredients for the Income Tax are easier to find, so it’s more likely you’ll be able to try one of these out with even a modest liquor collection.
The Income Tax Cocktail
1 1/2oz gin
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz dry vermouth
Juice of 1/4 orange (about 3/4 oz)
dash of angostura bitters
Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass and garnish with an orange wheel.
This drink is worth making for its history alone. Still, we’ll start with the recipe and then move on from there.
The Monkey Gland
1 1/2oz (dry) gin
1 oz (freshly squeezed) orange juice
1/4 oz grenadine
1/4 oz Pernod
Shake over ice, strain into cocktail glass and serve with an orange twist. I’ve seen it made 1:1 gin:orange juice and served with no garnish, but if you’re getting the juice from an orange, you might as well use the peel.
As a quick aside, some folks substitute Benedictine instead of the Pernod (I think this was started when Absinthe fell out of favor).
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So we went to the Spring Sale of the San Diego Potters’ Guild today. It’s hosted in Balboa Park’s Spanish Village, and there was a lot of fun pieces of art. We decided part way through that we’d shell out for a fruit bowl, something we’ve needed for some time. We had one picked out that we both liked although it was $45, which is a lot on our current budget. Then we noticed the following bowl in the Seconds (something wrong) table:
We both really liked the design on the bottom, and while it’s not as nice as the original one we’d picked out, and it has a big crack in it, it was priced at an astounding one dollar! So we nabbed it and happily put the other one back. After tax it was a whole $1.08, which is totally worth it. A detailed picture of it as well as a shot of it in use on our now-much-nicer counter are below.
The sale continues tomorrow (Sunday, the 10th) so if you’re in San Diego and looking for some great hand made mugs, bowls, dishes and a few sculptures, it’s well worth your time to check out.
Sangria is one of those drinks with a thousand variations. While normally the drink is a bit like a red wine fruit salad, this version is much more pared down. I actually came across it in the Wall Street Journal of all places. Now, sangria isn’t my typical type of drink. Red wine and citrus fruits both tend to do bad things to my teeth, so I generally avoid them in any real concentration. This version doesn’t help that, but but one night’s indulgence was certainly worth it.
Simple Mexican Sangria
1 bottle of red wine, preferably Spanish
juice of 6 limes
zest from peels of 2 limes
4 Tbs of sugar
Mix them all together in a pitcher with ice. Wait for it to cool down and either serve as is or through a strainer to remove the zest (depending on how chewy you like your wine).
We forget the ice part, and just chilled the bottle first which was the wrong move. The lime and wine are a little to aggressive that way, but the sugar mellows things out enough to make this an enjoyable drink. As a note, we had medium-small limes, and the proportions came out just fine. Finally, it’s probably easier to zest the two limes first and then juice them as the juicing process tends to tear up the peel.
Christy and I have just returned from a delightful weekend with a magnificent hostess. While we were there, we visited The Getty which was just fabulous. If you make it out to LA it’s well worth the price of admission (also, admission is free, although there is an $8 fee for parking). Many great works of art in a truly beautiful setting. We also managed to spend some time at various beaches, ate everything from scones to sushi, choked down a Chilcano de Pisco or three and even managed to smoke some cigars (ok, Christy didn’t do that part). Throw in things like lunch at a biker/surfer bar in Malibu and it was a great time.
Anyhow, there are pictures of the Getty up on my Flickr Page for those interested in such things. AE’s place of employment required her charms whilst we were at the Getty, so y’all only get pictures of Christy and I.