Odd architecture decisions?

Some 'modern sculptures' I understand, others I do not. This is in the do-not category. Sighted right near the Experience Music Project at the Seattle Center. Why are there giant bamboo flat pieces of wood up in the air? I have no idea. But they look amusing enough. Some of them look quite banged up so I wonder if some geniuses have attempted to climb up them. Good luck!



This photo is at the Amazon campus. It is our main 'meeting' building and I really like the subtle logo on it. Amazon never puts crazy in-your-face logos on buildings, but this one is at the center of the campus. I like it, especially for the nice courtyard for sitting outside. Great place to chill once summer starts. 

Baking my way through Breadmakers Apprentice: Bagels

The next item in the alphabet of bread baking is... Bagels! I've been looking forward to this experiment because I LOVE good bagels, and I hate bagels that you get most places that are large and bland. This meant that I immediately knew I'd be making mini-bagels - small and cute.

The baking itself is not too bad. You can read the recipe here as I do not want to re-type it up. It takes two days and a couple of raises but nothing too annoying. The ingredients are the difficult part. The recipe calls for high gluten flour. So I got some at the grocery store and started making the dough with it. Well... the dough was thick. Very thick. And extremely sticky and terrifying. So just to make myself calmer I decided to make a second batch of bagels with regular bread flour (oh I am so thankful for this). So double the fun and double the bagels!

The kneading portion of the process was intense. I did not feel safe putting the dough in my stand mixer because it was SO thick. So on to the table. Ryan was nice enough to help kneading the gluten-dough. I think my arms would have collapsed if I did both. It was SUPER thick even with more water added.

Well.... still not too bad. On the first day I divided the dough into pieces and shaped it into bagels and put them into the fridge.

The second day is when it gets interesting.

The basic process for cooking a bagels is to boil it for two minutes per side and then bake it for about ten minutes. I started with the gluten bagels for boiling.

Well... as soon as you put then into the water they started poofing like CRAZY. Expanding so that three of them were overflowing my pot. Insanity. With some panic and a bit of mess I got through it.

Now on to the oven. I got the bagels in the oven (the gluten ones). They bake and expand even MORE. I was afraid they were not going to fit and might catch the broiler or the other shelves. Happily this was avoided.

So I get them out and they are huge. I set them aside and move on to baking the bread-flour bagels. These ones do NOT expand like crazy and look much more manageable. Yay!



As I am about to put the bread-flour bagels in the oven I look over at the pans of high-gluten flour bagels. Uh-oh. They have de-poofed. They are flat and wide and gross looking. Not bagels. Heart sink.

THANKFULLY I had my bread-flour bagels to save the day. They turned out tasting just like... delicious bagels! I would change some things - maybe boil a bit longer, put on different topics and shape them better? But they turned out great. So gluten free flour? AH NO. You all ended up in the trash after I got some photos (and waited for Ryan to get home so he could be amazed at them too).

So yes. Next bread baking item complete, but not without casualties.

Daring Bakers May 2011: MARQUISE ON MERINGUE

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrowand Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

The challenge for this month was super exciting for me because I have had the "real version" of the dessert at the mentioned restaurant. And loved it. Many times. It is the 'El Diablo' at Tango. It is a plate of decadence. Chocolate with a hint of spice and meringue, caramel and roasted almonds on the side. You can read about the recipe (and prettier versions than mine...) here.

This dessert is no easy muffin. It involves multiple days of work (well at least for me... you have to wait at least two hours in between making the chocolate blocks and I decided to just leave them in the freezer overnight). The following day I made the caramel and toasted almonds (Ryan did the almonds actually! He bakes!). Then I had everything ready and just had to whip up the meringue and put everything together when serving. Super easy.



I loved the result. So good and easy to put together in the end. I served it when I had a lot of people over so it was great to see everything (except one) of the 22 or so desserts get eaten. I live to fatten up my friends. :) The only problem was that I could not use paper plates and had 22 dirty dishes... There was no way I was using the blow torch on paper plates. :P

Will I be making this thing again? Most likely not. So much work! And I know where I can get one without working at all. Maybe for some super-special occasion. But there are so many things to cook!!

So since I got a blowtorch for this recipe (and have since been exploring it with crème brûlée, I need more recipes that use a blowtorch. Mmmmm. 

Kitchen Failures Series: Cream of Fail

I made crème brûlée for the first time a week or so ago as soon as I got my blowtorch in the mail. So excited to burn things. It was delicious and super easy. I used this recipe and it turned out amazing. The only comment probably would be that I didn't put enough sugar on the top when broiling them so the crust did not get to break with the pop that I love so much. Oh well. 


Just to clarify... this is not a picture of that cooking excursion. This is when I made it again this week and thought it would be so easy again. Well... not so much. I was making bagels along with making this so I turned out and mixed the egg yolks too long in the mixer. And then since the eggs took up more room since they had so much air in them they over-fillled my ramekins. So I got greedy and filled them up high... bad mistake. So I put them in a water bath into the oven. All fine until I check on them about twenty minutes later and they're overflowing like crazy. 


Panic. Turn off oven. Take everything out. Laugh. Deal with the fact that even though there is not room to torch, they are still delicious. Just a ramekin of creamy goodiness. Thankfully it cooked enough that it was not just beat eggs and sugar. So this was not a bad failure?


So I love crème brûlée, but next time I make it I will be paying a LOT more attention.


For a real failure stay tuned for the full analysis of my bagel failure. It was epic. 

Playing in the sun

I should clarify that I was not actually playing, but watching. There was a bit of time to spare before seeing Into the Woods and so we wandered around the nearby park. It was HUGE and so many soccer fields with everyone playing. I love summer in Seattle. If I had a more regimented schedule I would think about joining one of those teams... but for now I'll just watch. :)

Seattle Opera House for The Magic Flute

Well, the Seattle Opera House is not dedicated to opera - it also houses ballet and all sorts of other things, but I always think of it as the opera house.

This excursion was to see The Magic Flute. I'd seen that opera once before in London but that was at the English Opera... meaning it is in english. I do not like seeing opera in a language I understand because I pay attention to what they are saying too much (which is often dumb) and well... think about how dumb what they are saying is. This time the opera was in German so it makes life a lot easier - read the subtitles and then continue.

The performance was great. The voices are not as strong as in the Met or other huge opera houses, but they are beautiful. The set was simple but fun and I loved the acting. Overall it was a great performance, an awesome girls date and I'll be returning.

I actually bought a 3-show pass for the next season to see Carmen, Porgy and Bess and Madame Butterfly. I have no interest in seeing Madame Butterfly, but it was cheaper to buy a three-pass than two individual tickets. I'll figure out who will come with me and how to get rid of the last pass when it comes closet to date. :) For now I look forward to some more beautiful performances.

Girl Geeks invade Facebook

I went to another Girl Geek event last week. These are events for technical women around Seattle to gather and network. They are usually hosted by some large company in the area. The first one I went to was at the Microsoft Store and was very crowded and it was had to socialize. But they had an interesting speaker and I felt like it was worthwhile, except for my lack of personal space.

The event last week was a lot roomier and was at the new Facebook offices downtown. They opened up a very small development office in Seattle not long ago and are hiring like crazy. Hence the event was sort of like a giant plug to come work for Facebook. Showing how awesome they are and often putting in comparisons to other companies. But then everyone in the industry is hiring like crazy - grab while you can. Not so tasteful... but at least they served tasty food. I may not have loved their approach to the event so much, but I loved the office - looking right over the Olympics and the ferries. Lovely.

Overall I enjoyed the event again. Great to talk to people afterwards and even if I am not interested in joining Facebook I got to learn about a different perspective of running a business.

Friends and games

In the tradition of many board games, when people come over, board games inevitably get brought out. This time there were more group games. Especially get to break the ice with people that just met. Or to just laugh. I like laughing.

I didn't play so many games this time as one of the people hosting. Busy bringing out fun treats and making sure there is enough food. :)

And it always amuses me that when hosting, the amount of alcohol in the house either stays the same or increases after a party.... and people do drink. A lot.

Froyo for the soul

I have always been a huge fan of ice cream. Whether to use as comfort food, topping to a delicious meal or to make. But my recently discovery has been Frozen Yogurt. This is something that I've always rejected because well... ice cream is so much better! How can something that comes out of a machine be good? There is no crazy milkiness to it and it is the "cheep" ice cream flavor.

Well I am glad I got off my high horse and tried some Froyo over at the new Yogurtland that opened 2 blocks from my apartment. They sell yogurt by the ounce there. You take a container and go by the row of fifteen or so different flavors they have and fill your cup up yourself. In the end there is a toppings bar of fruit and sweets.

First of all... I LOVE THAT I SERVE MYSELF. So great not to have to wait for somebody to make me an ice cream cone, break my waffle cone, etc. Amazing.

Then the flavors. True they might not be as defined as gelato, but surprisingly good! The dutch chocolate one is a must for me. I love the mango one and the lemon one. Delicious. Some of the ones I didn't like so much have been red velvet cake and blueberry. But the great thing is that I usually only get a little bit of a bunch of flavors... because I can!

And finally... price. For two cups we usually end up spending five dollars. What a great deal!

Anyways - froyo is in. But now I am craving some gelato.

National Geographic Lecture Series at Benaroya Hall

This is a photo of Benaroya Hall - home of the Seattle Symphony. I have been to many various events there, mainly to listen to classical music. But my favorite events there have been lectures.

I got season tickets this year to the National Geographic Lecture Series. This is an amazing series where some of the great writers/photographers/adventurers from National Geographic come to Seattle and give talks about their latest adventures. They are very down to earth and each lecture has a 15 or so minute Q&A session after the lecture.

This particular lecture was about African ceremonies by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher. This was a fascinating lecture about their quest to document the ever disappearing ceremonies across Africa. They focused their series on several tribes that have amazing body painting. So much to learn. Their lecture was more of a people study than about photography.

My favorite was called "America's Great Wildlife Migrations" by the photographer Joel Sartore. He has had a huge number of his photos published in National Geographic over the years. He talked about how he became a photographer and his mission as well as focusing on his latest NG article and his wild animal portrait series. I especially loved how he went into the process of how he gets his photos. From camping out in random mosquito-ridden swaps, to setting up cameras to try to capture snakes, to hanging out in a dry suit in a river with fish, to getting crazy diseases in the islands of the Pacific. Crazy lifestyle. And two years of his life making the article on the migrations went down to just a couple of photos in the final copy of the magazine. So much for so few photos!

I loved the lecture series. Cannot wait until next year. Would really recommend similar lecture series to everyone! Lots to learn and inspire.

Heather Lake: When going on a winter hike, bring sunglasses

On another beautiful day last Saturday, we trucked over to Heather Lake for a short hike. The hike is beautiful - not too steep but very adventurous. Lots of stream/waterfall crossings from the melting. Lots of scrambling over tree roots and boulders. In the latter part of the trail, there is significant amount of snow. No sight of the ground, but a clear trail (which I am convinced is not the actual trail... just somebody walking vaguely toward the lake). The snow is packed and very thick, but both of us fell through once or twice.

The lake itself is absolutely beautiful. Huge and with beautiful mountains towering over it. In the summer you can walk around the lake, but we could hear the avalanches on the other side - not so safe to walk over to the cliffs.

It was also incredibly sunny. Some of the hikers were sunbathing by the lake. I am not that intense but I had completely forgotten about the sun and didn't bring sunscreen and sunglasses. So the time at the lake was short. Snap some photos while squinting and eyes tearing up from the sun, and disappear back to the forest where we hide. I need to start adding sun-accessories to my hiking backpack. Easy to forget!

I would love to return to this hike. Not too long and a beautiful finish. In the summer people apparently jump into the lake. Crazy!

Baking my way through Breadmakers Apprentice: Anadama and Greek Celebration Bread

I have wanted to pick up a new baking project for a while. I do Daring Bakers and then I cook/bake random stuff on the side. But that is not very often. I was looking through the books on Angels' shelf last time I was there and I saw Breadmarkers' Apprentice. It is the quintessential bread baking book. Amazing recipes. So I decided to bake it from A-Z (so I do not skip things!). Googling around it seems that this is a challenge many have tried (and often given up a short way through... whoops). Will see how it goes (and if it goes well I should try it for some of my other cookbooks). So far I have baked the first two.

Pictured above is Anadama bread. It is sort of a cornbread. I had never baked cornbread before and I did not like it. Too coarse and it didn't smell that amazing. Mine also didn't raise enough which might contribute to it. It did go very well with smoked salmon for breakfast. I am too lazy to type up the recipe so you can view it here or here. This is not going to be a bread I make again.



Next up was Greek Celebration Bread. Much better. Soft and fluffy. It is a bit of a sweet bread. You can also spread a sweet graze over it or add in raisins and shape it into crazy awesome shapes but I didn't do that. Too much sweetness. My only problem with it has been figuring out what to pair it with. Jam would be overwhelmingly sweet and any cheese or not-sweet spread is odd. An odd bread. It also rose super high in the oven - I was afraid it was going to hit the top (which it thankfully didn't). You can find the recipe here or here.

Next up: Bagels. I am afraid. I need to procure some malt syrup and high gluten flour first. Hoping Whole Foods does me well.

What would you do with a giant bucket of legos?

There are lots of random things that live on my floor at work (dogs... foosball... ping pong.... engineers...). One of those is a giant tub of legos. There are always fun creations that pop up in the breakroom. Turns out many people are quite good at legos (I am not one of those).

So Friday there was a building-wide competition for best lego floor. My floor picked "WAP (my organization) army" I believe. So everyone built a small 'creature' to contribute to the army. I think it turned out well. I contributed some funky looking flower and a wobbly person. Both are kind of hidden in this shot. :P No winner has been announced - I think they are going with the "you are all winners" strategy, but it was fun.

Coffee that stares at you

Coffee is one of those things that is so central to Seattle. It is everywhere. Large nationwide/citywide coffee shops or cute little runaways.

This encounter was at the Fremont Coffee House. It is small and cute and there are not many people there. I was only there because Cafe Ladro, which is across the street, did not have any seats available. This place was empty and cozy. Only problem is that it closes at 9pm while Ladro is available until 11pm. Bit of a downer, but not too bad for a weeknight.

I love when there are designs in coffee. It is usually smilies or trees, but this is the first time I've seen a skull. Afterward I saw a painting of a skull on one of the walls - maybe it is a theme? Either way, I love the topper on the cake making it even more delicious. :)

(PS - I realized I have a lot of posts recently where I talk about going to some restaurant...)

Super amazing chicken wings

I was never a huge fan of chicken wings until Ryan made them for me when we first started dating (PS - cooking is a good way to woo a woman). I don't like deeply fried things and most chicken wings I have tried have a lot of breaded stuff on them or just a lot of fat. I am not a fan. I also do not like barbecue sauce so that kicks most contenders out.

Ryan uses Alton Browns' recipe for everything except the sauce. The sauce he uses is six tablespoons Franks Hot Sauce, two tablespoons butter and one Tabasco. Spicy but so so good. It was so spicy this time I had to run to the fridge for some milk. But worth every bit of suffering.

Just writing this post makes me crave more of them. Mmmmm.

Try the recipe out. Unless you are a vegetation or hate spicy stuff (then you can just scale down the sauce), it is oh so amazing.

Board games fun

I used to think that board games meant playing Monopoly, Cranium or Scrabble. I thought that was it. Boy was I wrong. Since meeting Ryan and his friends I have been exposed to a huge flurry of board games. Coming from all directions. Bookshelves, rooms, houses... FILLED with boardgames.

Lots of the board games I do not like. For example Fresco didn't work for me. But most others that I try are awesome. I have also never gotten the hang of Race for the Galaxy.

But others are awesome. I am completely addicted to Dominion. It is an amazing game. I was probably the last person to be finally introduced to Settlers of Catan. Love it. And Carcasonne is awesome and I love that it doesn't require you to hide your hand. And Shadows over Camelot is an amazing 'pseudo-cooperative' game (there might be a traitor! Pandemic is fun but a little bit stressful (on no! the virus!). Ticket to Ride is simple but involves surprising amount of skill. And Blokus is on so simple but so fun. Strategy and blocks? Yes!

My new favorite group game is Times Up. So much fun. Few props and caters to both people who know a lot and those that can memorize/make things up. And I just got introduced to Wits and Wagers last weekend which is an awesome spin on a 'trivia' game.

This is just a few of the board games. So many more out there. But it is fun to explore them. Until I get tired of learning yet another set of rules.



And I leave you with some cute flowers. :) Just because.

Goodbye to my car

On Saturday I sold my car. It has been a great car to my - my first car and it has been a lot of places with me. Heck - it even got shipped across the country! Not too shabby. I've taken it up to a summer in Providence, RI, to many trips out to WV, commuting in MD and many adventures around WA state and on to Oregon and British Columbia. So many fun places and never a problem with it (well... one flat tire when it got shipped, but I am blaming that one on the shipping company). Three and some years of fun.

But now I didn't use it anymore. In Seattle I get most places by bus or walking. And since moving in with Ryan I haven't had a place to park it and we usually only use his car anyways. What is the point of paying the car payments, insurance, maintenance and parking fir it? None.

Time for this car owner to let go and join the ranks of car-less Americans (well not quite, I have Ryans can to use). I signed up for ZipCar for when I do need a car and am frankly quite excited to try it out. So many ZipCar hiding spots in my neighborhood!

Will see when (and if) I buy a car again. If I do... it might very well be the one I just sold.

So call this my last photo with the car right before I handed over the keys. :)

Gasworks park

Gasworks is one of the odd attractions in Seattle, but one I always recommend. Odd that a tourist recommendation involves an old gas plant... but the view from it is magnificent and the remains are actually displayed in a very tasteful manner.

On windy days there are always lots of people out there flying kites, and a group of skateboarders by the main overlook by the water. Best place to sit on the grass and watch the sea-planes take off and land. And it is I believe the start of most of the crazy Fremont parades. :) You can read more about them in the wikipedia article.

This is not the most interesting photo but I love the clouds and the non-chelate look of it.

Looking at Rainier from the Olympics

On an absolutely beautiful day last weekend we took an adventure out to the Olympic peninsula. In the 1 3/4 of a year that I've lived here I haven't gone out the the peninsula (minus a ferry ride to one of the islands which doesn't count). This was a day trip so no crazy hikes or getting far into the park, but I'll be excited to return.

My original plan was to hike up Mt.Walker which had great reviews, flowers and views. Unfortunately I didn't realize that there was a road and that you can just drive up the mountain. I do not like hiking somewhere you can drive so we just drove up the mountain and decided to do some other hike. This is one of the views from the top of the mountain. It is odd for me to look out to Rainier and have water be in the foreground. Beautiful. We didn't get the see the wildflowers which I believe from the reviews are only on the trail. So maybe worth to do it? The road is apparently closed in winter - so it is not as lame then.

The back-up hike was Lena Lake. It is another 45 minutes away from the previous hike so it was very odd to start there around 2pm (we usually start hikes at.. 10/11am?). Good thing that the sun doesn't go down early now. Lena Lake was a great relaxing hike. I would love to camp out at the lake and look up at the stars. Plenty of spring runoff waterfalls too. The hike is very well maintained and I think there will be a lot of people there soon. As is-we got there as a lot of folks were leaving so it wasn't such a problem to share the hike. Those photos will come later to flickr as I have an insane amount to process still (tulips and hikes and hangouts oh my!)

Because we CAN CAN CAN

I adore burlesque shows. The Can Can in Seattle does great ones several times a week! I went there last summer with Ederlyn and had an amazing time. A great mix of quiet date-night atmosphere with beautiful dancing, humor and of course raunchiness. I went back this week on another LivingSocial deal (half price show) with the boy. Still love. I went to the same show both times (WTF Wednesdays) so I want to check out another show next time. I recommend watching some of their videos on youtube. It is way better live, but this will be my commercial for you. If you're in Seattle you should check it out. If you are not - find a can-can place near you and go there. :)

This is not necessarily the best representation of the show, but the best photo I got (blurriness-wise) when I got my camera out for the last act. That is the host of the show demonstrating to an audience member the most important motion of the show (humping). Right before this they did step 1 - vodka (since they are not allowed to drink on stage they got off the stage to take a shot).

Tulips and Thinking

A week behind in photos? Whoops. This is from the Tulip Festival that I went to last weekend. I went last year but Ryan was taking all of the photos - I was excited to get in on the action this year. Sadly that also means I have an insane amount of photos to process. Tulip festival is not quite over so you can head on over or check it out next year. Best chance of getting a huge amount of tulips without having to go to Holland. :)

As for photos... It has been hard for me to take photos. It is easy on a beautiful day when I am in a great mood. Not so much when I am stressed or in pain or when it is disgusting outside. This week it was pain - I was suffering for two days from overstressing my abs at crossfit. That has led to my decision to quit crossfit. No more days of not being able to walk or bend over or lift things because I am in horrible pain. Going to try a form of exercise that is less destructive.

So I've missed a couple of days of photos this week. The 365 project seems to be loosing steam. Well it is most likely down to max of 360 or so photos. It is hard when I forget to take a photo and then I am back home and tired. Anyways... enough complaining. :) Going to keep going but recognize that sometimes I have to miss.

Scarecrow in the city?

I stumbled upon a random garden in South Lake Union a couple of weeks ago. It very much confuses me to run into a scarecrow in the middle of the city - is it scaring off bad drivers? Children who will not use the crosswalk? Homeless people?

Nope - this is a cute little community garden buried in the Cascade/SLU (depends what you call it) neighborhood. Lots of small patches, and cute scarecrows scattered all around. Lots of people had flowers blooming right now - looking forward to see what fruits and veggies they have soon!

Many people do not get a place in the city because they want a garden of their own. It is great that people can in some way have their own garden here. If you have a balcony and then some land in the community garden... thats a great start to living in the city with some of the comforts of being in a house! :)