Indian Summer

We are 'old' people now, and it's not all that often that we are invited to a party, but Friday we were though. Mark in my office was celebrating his birthday, throwing a party with a Halloween touch. We went there straight after work on Friday, and although I was kind of tired we still ended up staying there for almost three hours. Mark lives in university housing, on campus. I've never visited those student appartments before. They're fairly basic, but the location is pretty good. Mark is really into 'patisserie' and he baked some awesome cakes.

The last few days have been unusually warm, and Saturday there was no wind at all. We haven't been to the beach in a while, so we thought we needed to take advantage of the clement temperatures. C took his surfboard down to the beach, me my boogie board. We dressed up in wetsuits before we went into the water, but I'm not sure if it was necessary that day, the sea was quite warm. We were probably in the water for more than two hours, surprisingly. The waves weren't high, but there was some surf. After we got back on our bikes, we went into La Jolla for 'gelato' and walked the cove a little bit. This italian ice-cream is really worth the trip!

Today, Sunday, Jan invited us out sailing with him for a couple of hours. His sailing club is out on Shelter Island. We took out a small boat, a 21'' that actually didn't sail all that different from the Holder 14 I've been practising on. But, I've never been on a keelboat before since I started taking sailing classes. We went to the fish market on the way back and got some fish and chips. A seagull caught C's fish filets right in front of my nose. The owner of the restaurant saw it and took pity of us and gave us another serving. That seagull was quick! He knew what he was going for ...

What Pumpkins Are Good For ...

I carved my first pumpkin yesterday. We didn't do a pumpkin last year, but last week C grabbed us one of those big fat pumpkins at the market, and put me in charge of making something out of it. Actually, the agreement was that C would open it up and remove all the nasty stuff from it, then I would carve a figure into it. I must say that pumpkins are quite new to me. I didn't even know what it was we would find inside it. I've had pumpkin pie a couple of times, but never made one myself and was actually quite intrigued by this plant (or vegetable, or whatever).

So, C started cutting it open by carving out a lid on the top of the plant, and as it turns out, the inside is pretty hollow. There are seeds inside, held together by some gory stuff, sort of like inside a melon. Once you've scraped out the loose, wet, "gory" stuff, the inside of the pumpkin consists of the pumpkin meat. It's walls are thick, probably two inches, at least. I now took to carving the face, the best I could. There actually exist special tools for pumpkin carving, none of which we possess of course, but without them the carving is not completely obvious, because the walls are pretty thick and solid and one sort of has to saw through them. So, I opted for something simple, but I think the result was not all too bad ...

The pumpkin looks pretty neat by dark too as it stands the guard on our porch.

Now, once I had finished carving the pumpkin, feeling bad about throwing away the leftovers from the carvings, I cleaned the seeds up and put in a pan in the oven with a little salt sprinkled over them (they're great for snack), then gathered the meat that had fallen off and put in a pot. I had heard that good soup could be made from a pumpkin. I found this mean recipe on the internet for a Thai Pumpkin and Coconut Cream Soup, and swiftly cooked up one. It was actually not bad at all. Slightly tart with lemongrass, ginger and lime, but softened by the coconut milk.

Speak My Language

Yesterday I saw again the two girls from Elfland that I met on the boat a couple of weeks ago. I was working up on campus, they were visiting. The university had an "open house" day, or "UCSD rocks" they called it. They were looking at job and grad school prospects, besides just visiting our pretty - or so some people say - campus.

I had a little coffee with them, but then thought I'd invite them for dinner to chat some more. It's nice to be able to speak one's language with somebody, because I don't get that many occasions to do that now. And I haven't been back home in Elfland for quite a while now, or one and a half year.

My sweet husband made us dinner while the three of us chatted away. We even recited poetry! Oh, sweet language ...

Time went fast. It was late when they finally left. It's good to finally have some elfish contacts here.

Movie and Dinner in Hillcrest

We went to see a movie last night up in Hillcrest, a documentary called Jesus Camp.

Hillcrest is a great place for restaurants, so we decided to get some dinner there as well. We went to what has now become a favorite, the Arrivederci. Had Carpaccio with plenty of aragula, artichokes and parmesan for starters, then Ravioli: Pansotti cheese with aragula and cubed tomatoes in a white wine sauce for me, pumpkin filled ravioli with sage butter sauce for C. Both were delicious. For dessert, the waiter insisted on offering us an Italian Cheese Cake, because he had accidently spilled some of our wine on the floor when filling our glasses. We didn't say no! It came with raspberry and chocolate sauce and it was also delicissimo.

The movie was disturbing. But it does portray America today, I guess. God bless us ...

Rhythm of Saints and Sinners

Yesterday we got an invitation to go out on the boat of C's boss. He has a small yacht he sometimes takes out in the harbour in summertime when there's a concert going on at the Bayside venue. Last night, Paul Simon (from Simon and Garfunkel) was playing.

One can basically anchor the boat just across from the stage, no further than if one was sitting in some of the seats in the back. But most of all, this is a nice excuse to get together and have a little drink and hang out on the boat.

Anyway, it was a cool gathering. Paul Simon provided the background music and various people from C's lab, B's connections and the industry provided the company. I met two girls from Elfland and talked longly with one of them.