Waiting for the Sun

This is getting pretty irritating. Maybe I should just be grateful I don't live in the UK or something, where theoretically it is worse. I am just looking for commiseraters.
A couple screenshots from some local webcams:













































Thankfully, Google Reader has a nice line-up of 648 articles for me to read while I wait for the sun to come out so I can get on the bike and go to the gym.

Spritz

A popular Italian summer drink...the spritz. A bit sweet, a bit bitter, nice and cold (on hot days...which it is unfortunately NOT at the moment).

What *I* think is really cool, even if not used to its full advantage in this particular instance is that this blog entry was created in about 5 min from start to finish. Point, shoot, edit, 1-finger text entry, upload and voila! Published directly to the weblog.

Did I mention...I did that with an iPhone? ;-)

Aloo Paratha: tasty but wrong

Probably only one entry today because I am doing some training most of the day, but here's a quick one.

Last night, wanted a simple dinner and decided to try to make aloo paratha (whole wheat indian bread stuffed with spicy potato filling). I'd seen a recipe with pomegranate seeds last weekend that sounded really nice.

My results? Well, too thick, not round as they should be. I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong. Here's a photo of how they turned out:




So this morning (had aloo paratha for breakfast...and looks like I will be eating aloo paratha for a while based on the fact that I made 12...but at least I froze half of them) I googled it - should'a done that LAST night - and found this indian woman who did a great demo of how to make them.
Will try again....in a few months...when I run out of the ones I made. ;-)

Bike to Work Week

A friend of mine who lives in Georgia (hi tracie :-) ) is busy promoting the "bike to work" week. (Apparently this week). She's always been an avid cyclist and I remember when I lived in Berkeley a million years ago and worked together with her, we bought the same bikes. I think she is still riding hers while mine...uh...got a little rusty from being rained on and snowed on and...hmmm.

What's nice now is that I live in an area of Munich and work for a company where riding to work is the norm for me when the weather is ...collaborating with me. Today was a bit questionable, and as you can see by the photo i just took of the backyard here at work and the sky above...while there is no rain at this very minute...it is threatening to come again very soon. Oh wait, I take it back. It just started to pour. Riding home will be fun.















Anyway, so I promised Tracie I would show how Munich is such a bike-friendly city.
A few photos from around here...:


No cars allowed in this direction, but bikes are allowed. :-)



















Bike lanes next to the street...
















Bikes parked outside workplaces...
















Not bad. :-) Although I get yelled at all the time by pedestrians who think they own the sidewalks. Argh.

Visual Menu ;-)

Fulfilling a request.
I didn't make the Char Kway Teo though.

Chicken Patiala

For people looking for a recipe for chicken patiala - look at a later post of mine here: http://juliecanblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/chicken-patiala-take-2.html. It turned out quite well although is not perhaps the classical recipe.

The sun actually came out for about an hour mid-day today and I decided to take advantage of it. So instead of going out and having lunch with colleagues, I went and walked around a couple streets away from the office in an area I haven't really seen. During the stroll, I walked past a French cooking store - with all kinds of pots and pans as well as spices, liquors, sweets, etc. So I couldn't help but go in and at least look around. In the end, I only bought one small thing - something I had meant to buy ever since I got back from Singapore: rosewater. You can get it here in general, but it's probably most commonly found in pharmacies, of all places.

The reason I had wanted it was because one of the meals we had in Singapore in early April was at an Indian restaurant called Yantra (here are a couple photos I took when we were there of one of the beautiful tandoors at the restaurant and the guy who was cooking in them)




























where I had a dish I had never had before: Chicken Patiala. (and...here's Patiala - south east Punjab, India)












On the menu, the description of the dish (creamy chicken dish) is one that would never ever have interested me much (I like tomato/onion based sauces and spicy. Creamy, mild, white - no thanks). But Rohit, a friend with us, suggested it and said we wouldn't be likely to come across the dish very regularly. And in the end, it was one of the best things I ate on the trip.

What was funny, was that I asked for the recipe almost right away but never got it. We started out by asking the waiter. He said he would try. When he came back some minutes later, he didn't mention the request. So I asked - "any luck getting the recipe?" He looked a bit embarrassed and mumbled something about cream and chicken. So then we tackled the host. Rohit pulled him aside and asked (in punjabi?) for the recipe and gave the guy...a look. And then Rohit turned to me and said "he'll get it." Ten minutes later, the guy came back and said... "well, the chef said he would tell you the ingredients, but not the quantities." I said "fine, that works for me." As we were paying, I was handed a slip of paper and Rohit was given some kind of nod. But a quick glance to the paper revealed immediately that it was inaccurate. One of the key ingredients in the VERSION that we ate was missing completely: rosewater. And so I suspected that there might be other ingredients missing The rosewater was lovely and subtle - that perfumey note that swam through the creamy sauce. But it was unmistakable and it was nowhere on that slip of paper.

So...I'm left with experimentation. Online I've found a few versions of the recipe - and even some photos of what it should look like (like this one)









- but the version I ate was almost a pure white, and while being rich and creamy, had an incredible depth of flavor that I wouldn't normally find in a creamy sauce. So...i have the rosewater...now just need the recipe. Any hints? ;-)

Bike yard flowers

Anyone know what these are called? It is a bush in the yard next to
our bikes that blooms every year about this time. I think I have to go
down later and cut off a few branches. I'm not a big fan of
purple...but these are really beautiful.

Spring for Lunch

Well...Vietnamese spring rolls and strawberries. Close enough.

Behavioral Targeting (Yes), Execution (No)

What I like on Facebook at the moment is the fact that it seems to be doing behavioral targeting successfully. The ads that are being served up to me these days are more often than not things I am interested in. Read: travel, technology, singapore, etc.

So this morning, I saw an ad off on the side for a contest where you can win a free trip to Singapore. Cool. So...click.

Have to add an application...well...ok.



























But then you click through on this page...to the Contest sponsor website (Uniquely Singapore)...and you get this:











Still theoretically ok. Until....you click further and get this:









At which point you write a short letter of complaint.

Trying to fix comments

I have no idea what is wrong with the comments...will try to fix today/tomorrow...

Green Isabella

Sorry - I keep laughing at these. A friend sent me the link a few days ago, and I think they are brilliant, even if they are strange.

I won't say much other than search - and take a look at a few.
My favorites - definitely spider and bee and snail from season 1, limpet from season 2. Very dramatic.

Green Isabella

DoYouPoken?

Playing with new toy that people around the office are all buying from Ingo, who has seemed to have started a bit of a trend.


A tangible social networking device for the super geeky...(www.doyoupoken.com)

For 10 euros, you get a little RFID-enabled USB device where you can upload all your social networking data (Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, Flickr, Plaxo, etc.) and then when you meet someone on the street who also has a device, touch them together, watch the little light turn green - data exchanged.

Interesting way to link the tangible to the digital.
Then, upload the data you've collected via USB.


Finally, manage your little poken profile online:


And of course, there are whole communities springing up at the moment around the toy. Ingo thinks they should distribute these things in McDonald's happy meals...I'm not so sure.


Anyway, fun for the moment. Or the minute.

Cave Day

It's just one of those days when you want to curl up in a soft warm place and nap.
But unless you are a cat....

...you go to work.

Need Dabbawalla ;-)

Yesterday's biryani was good, but the recipe, which was supposed to make 4-6 portions made more like 8-10. So...we are left with a lot of biryani. Brought some to work:


...and Mallorie said she'd help me eat it. :-)

Still, some days I think it would be nice to have the Mumbai Dabbawalla service here in Munich, even if totally impractical for this city. I might imagine a team of German dabbawallas dressed up in lederhosen? Although I pass on the bavarian food - not a big fan of Schweinekrustenbraten mit Semmelknödel und Rotkrautsalat.


And I think the tupperware...while practical...is not nearly as beautiful as carrying your lunch around in something like this:


Or even better - the Singapore version:


I could hang it over my bike handle.

Picnic on the Isar

Andreas had other plans this morning/afternoon, so I called Britta, Oliver and Claudia and proposed a picnic on the Isar. What to make? Well, let's try out some chicken biryani. Never made it before, and not bad picnic food because it is one dish - everything thrown together. (Although we had raita with cucumber and mint with it and drinks and cake for dessert - which Oliver, Claudia and Britta brought).

Critical assessment? It wasn't difficult, but took some time. My Indian friends tend to make biryani (at least parts of it) in a pressure cooker - which I don't have - and perhaps this is one of the secrets because...it seems I can't cook rice in a pot, no matter how carefully I watch it. Somehow, I always overcook it and it is a bit mushy. Nevertheless, the biryani was very tasty, if a little over-done. I marinated the chicken in garlic and ginger and chillies last night after we got back from Star Trek, and then cooked it with the rice this morning, and then headed to the gym for a bit, and then met up with everyone at 1 in the afternoon. The recipe came from an Indian cookbook one of my former MBA colleagues, Anant, gave me before we left Singapore. It was a Hydrabadi Murg Biryani version (Murg means chicken)...I guess different cities have their own versions. (And...i made a couple ...small...adjustments...so it becomes the Hydrabadi-Julie version.)

We ate directly by the river, with blankets spread out underneath us to make the rocks a bit less ...rocky - the weather has been gorgeous this weekend and didn't disappoint today. Then we relaxed and chatted in the sun for a couple hours. Oliver and Claudia both work for Microsoft, and Britta and I are huge Apple fans, so there was some friendly insult exchanges right and left...;-)

Back home now, sort of sad the weekend comes to an end.

But Britta and Mallorie and I have some plans this week, so looking forward to that...

Picnic lunch

1 pm. Riverside.

Beautiful weather? Tourists? Check. Beer gardens full? Check.

Random notes....

The beer garden next to the Viktualienmarkt in munich where I buy the
best tomatoes in the world (well, maybe-except they come from
Sardinia) was jam-packed at 3 pm today. Note to self: go buy tomatoes
earlier in the day...

Off to see the new Star Trek film this evening. People whose taste in
movies I trust tell me it's good.

Meanwhile, read a well-written but very disturbing article yesterday
about Dubai, an article which spends a lot of time describing the
slave/servant class that has more or less built the monster skyscraper
hotels and shopping malls for the Emirates. Will post the link a bit
later with some other thoughts.
Actually, here's the link to the article: "The Dark Side of Dubai" - thoughts still to come.

Wanna bet?

I was treated to lunch today because Ranjith lost a bet to me a while back. :-))) He says he is going to prepare now for the next bet to ensure he can beat me.

We were sitting having lunch a few weeks ago in an Indian restaurant, and drinking some plain old (but very nice) tea after lunch. And it was obviously not some sort of instant bag tea, but something the restaurant had cooked up itself - some nice blend of black (Darjeeling?) tea leaves, ginger, cloves, black pepper, and some full cream milk and sugar. I made some offhand comment that the tea was really good and Ranjith said,

"Yeah, and I know what the secret ingredient is!"
Curious, i asked..."oh, what?" (always open to learning secrets of the kitchen...)
and he practically whispered "aesofoetida." (otherwise often called "hing.")
"No way," I said. "Forget it. That's not in here."
"It is!" he insisted.
"No, it's not. Aesofoetida is used in food, not sweet tea. It's used to prevent gas from vegetables like onions and pulses!"
He insisted.
"ok," i said, laughing, "let's bet."
"what'll we bet?" he asked.
"lunch. you owe me lunch when you lose this one. The next lunch."
"ok."

So we called the waiter over and praised the restaurant's tea profusely. And then I asked: "so, can you tell us, please - we were debating here - is there aesofoetida in this tea?" (feeling like an idiot asking this question...)
And the waiter laughed and said..."No no, no one puts that in tea. There is ginger and cloves and and and..."
And when he walked away I smirked - maybe a little more than I should have, because Ranjith is just learning to cook, and said,
"Ok, so when do we go for our lobster and champagne lunch?!"
"Do they serve that at McDonalds?"
"Ha ha."
"Did you pay that guy off when I wasn't looking?"
"You wish."

Anyway, so today Ranjith, Mallorie, Mick, Michael and I headed off to (another) Indian restaurant for lunch where Ranjith paid up (for me) and we had one of the craziest conversations for an hour that I have had in awhile. (Another blog perhaps...)

Mallorie's sunglasses helped set the tone of the crack-up fest - which simply shouldn't be worn by Indian men even if they ARE wearing purple shirts.

:-) Thanks guys for such a nice lunch! :-)))

O'zapft es (Let it flow)

Some photos from last night's work party. :-) I gotta think about getting a dirndl perhaps, although will wait until Oktoberfest (at least) to consider it further. :-) Or lederhosen...even better.

Theme was the May Pole....and some of the men carried one around the office to invite us into the lounge at the end of the day.

Tonight, I'm invited to join some friends in a beer garden, but the weather is looking iffy, so not sure if I will make it. Maybe just head home and relax.