Anchors and Grenades

Standing On the Edge of the Hoover Dam

2009-05-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

San Luis Reservoir

2009-05-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

Nick and Madison visit California

2009-01-12T00:24:00.000-08:00

Christmas, my 30th Birthday, and New Year's eve were all spent with Nick and Madsion.

We had an amazing time sledding in South Lake Tahoe, eating at Alexander's Steakhouse, heading to the Monterey Bay aquarium, and sampling wine in Napa and Sonoma. Nick documented the events and put many of the pictures up on his gallery here.

Let's also not forget that I paid some guy who went to school for a long time to drill and then place screw into my jawbone.

Success - duck breast

2008-12-13T18:32:00.001-08:00

Well, we'll see if I get sick or not. But it tastes tremendous.

Duck project

2008-12-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to do this for several months now, but it seemed weird to be "vegetarian" and to be breaking down, cooking and curing whole ducks. So I decided to wait until after we came back from the Honeymoon.

So some background, I bought Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and have been checking out several recipes around the web for duck breast prosciutto. I was interested in making this as my first lesson in curing meat before I try to tackle things like bacon, salami, and other scary-rotting-me at-for-6-months projects. Since folks are probably tired of me talking about beer and pickles, I thought I should add a new club to my food preservation toolbox that will aid us in survival for the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

Since I was interested in making duck confit as well as faux-gras mousse, it seemed logical to buy whole ducks and break them down to save money. At $12 per duck it seemed like a good investment so I got a pair of fresh ones at an asian market in Cupertino.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) in these ducks they don't include the offal party pack, so I couldn't make faux gras (although there was one heart in there). I broke down the birds into

the 4 main chunks, harvested as much fat and skin as I could (to render duck fat), and saved all of the remaining bits for stock. I was only able to render about 2 cups of duck fat for both birds which wasn't quite enough (probably because I didn't cut the chunks up small enough) so I had to buy some pork fat and render that too.

My butchering lesson came from this blog posting about the total utilization of a duck.

My Timeline:

Day 1 - break down birds, render fat, salt breasts, season legs and thighs

Day 2 - make confit of the legs and thighs (also the tongues and heart), render extra pork fat.

Day 3 - make duck stock, check to see if breasts were cured enough (they weren't)

Day 4 - remove breasts from salt, then hang them

Here are the remaining pictures of this entire affair.

Rock-a-hula Luau, Luau!

2008-11-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of Geoffrey and Sarah (thanks guys!) at the Old Lahaina Luau.

I really thought going to a luau was going to be cheesy and touristy, but it seemed like something we should do anyway since we were in Hawaii. I was totally wrong about it being cheesy! The food was delicious, and the show was very entertaining and informative, too.

We had the best seats (traditional mats on the ground) right up in the very front so we could see everything perfectly; in fact, we could almost touch the dancers. We were seated with two other groups of people: a married couple that lived in Alaska, though he was from Oaxaca, and a family of four from Portland. Being with other people made the evening feel very Thanksgiving-y, and they were all super nice. Soon the show started, and the dancers were totally captivating! I wanted to capture every moment with my camera so I would remember it forever. Finally I took a break from taking pictures and just sat back and watched and listened. While men and women danced, the narrator told the story Pele and Maui (the Hawaiian goddess and god), and of how Hawaii's native people's society and customs changed as other cultures came to live there. It was fascinating and beautiful, and also a bit tragic because missionaries and rich American business men oppressed and manipulated the native people. The way the story was told and how it was presented was so enveloping, not to mention the pride with which it was done; it made me wish I was Hawaiian.

For dinner we had mostly traditional Hawaiian food (taro rolls, which I have decided are my new favorite thing, poi, roasted pig for Alex, sweet potatoes, local greens, octopus, fresh veggies, fried rice, ect.), but since it was Thanksgiving they switched out some menu items in favor of turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. Alex almost got a roasted pig cheek marinated in sweet chili oil, but it didn't work out. Maybe next time. Of course there was also an open bar with crazy drinks. One of them was a very unnatural shade of green, but neither Alex nor I was adventurous enough to try it. I had several virgin piña coladas, which were very tasty, though.

We had a great time, and I would totally go back again. It was the perfect way to spend Thanksgiving away from our friends and family, and the perfect end to our honeymoon.

Here's a movie I took of some of the dancing, though I missed taping a lot of the most exciting parts because I was too interested in just watching the live action.

House of the Rising Sun

2008-11-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

Today we got up at 2:00 AM to get on a tour bus that took us to Haleakala to see the sunrise. We were the first pickup, and characteristically I was not in a super great mood after only getting four hours of sleep. (Sorry, Alex...) We stopped for two other groups of people, and then met another bus that picked up other tourists staying in South Maui.

By the time we finally got on the road to the dormant volcano it was about 4:15 AM, and I was a bit less cranky. On the way up to the national park we passed by fields of sugarcane that were being harvested; you can tell because they burn the leaves to make it easier to harvest, and to kill off any pests and disease. It was really a magnificent sight

to see in pitch dark. I recorded a movie of the fires, but didn't get the camera switched on quickly enough to capture the cool machines they used to move the cane and leaves. Picture if The Claw arcade game-thing and a backhoe had a baby. It was totally neat and reminded me of something you would make with K'NEX (I think that's what they were called) as a kid.

Our tour guide was a very nice, if somewhat annoying, man. He basically used the tour as a venue for his comedy routine, which was part Jay Leno and part Rodney Dangerfield. Also he sounded EXACTLY like Click and Clack the Tappet brothers from Car Talk. Anyway, he wouldn't have been so bad if he would have focused more on local Hawaiian history and culture instead of commenting so much on the cultures of the guests on the tour. I felt especially bad for the Australians sitting behind us; they bore the brunt of his commentary. The other weird thing is that he had too much intimate knowledge of the inside of the ladies restrooms at some of the stops for my taste.

When we finally got to the top of the volcano, it was mega cold. The temperature was 30 something degrees, but with the wind chill (and believe me, the wind WAS blowing) it was more like 17 degrees, which is why Alex and I both look so hotT in the picture above. When the sun came up it was all totally worth it, and one of the park rangers performed a ceremonial chant in Hawaiian and declared the sunrise ours. It was quite beautiful, and on the way back down the volcano we saw a partial rainbow.

Thank you so much to Madison and Chad for gifting this to us. It was such an amazing experience.

For more pictures, click here.

Epic Journey to Hana

2008-11-25T23:00:00.000-08:00

I realize that I shouldn't judge all of Hawai'i by just one Island, but it is hard not to sometimes. Here on the West side of Maui it is almost desert like. None of the lush rainforest, purple flower, coconut bra, waterfall, or wild monkey dreams of my youth. Aside from the resorts, West Maui is kind of barren. As the Pineapple tour guide told us, it was because the King way back when allowed for clear cutting, and that ruining the island until the Baldwin dude reforested the island with non-native plants from all over the world. (actual research on this subject is left as an exercise to the reader)

Anyway, the Road to Hana brightened my view on the Hawaiian ecosystem. Hana, on the south eastern side of Maui is remote(ish) and full of trees bearing fruit, black sand beaches, and winding roads. The drive was windy, narrow and long, but it really wasn't all that bad the "road to divorce" as it is also know if completely lame way of describing it. Of course I have already been learned how to drive on windy roads with Lela so there was no problem at all.

The only animal wildlife we saw were some feral chickens, cats, and mongeese (if that is the plural) that frolicked and ate human leftovers out of garbage cans. Oh yeah, there are also a bunch of birds there too.

Nana or Piña

2008-11-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

That is what pineapples are called by other cultures. Missionaries in Hawaii dubbed them pineapples because they look like pinecones and they thought they tasted like apples. (Missionaries obviously had no idea what apples taste like though, because pineapples are seriously way better than apples.) We learned this interesting fact and much, much more from our awesome tour guide Steve during our tour of the Maui Gold pineapple plantation. Alex and I tried to eat our weight in free pineapple out in the fields, but as it turns out, eventually too much citrus will burn the crap out of your tongue so we had to stop.

Thank you so much to Son and Trang Le for the wonderful gift! We had a great time and got some amazing pictures. Here's one of us triumphantly holding the pineapples that we hand-picked.

Snorkeling

2008-11-23T20:02:00.000-08:00

Today I managed to snag my first sunburn of the year. I don't recall ever having a sunburn in November.

Anyway we rented some snorkeling equipment, and broke out the Waterproof case for the Lumix. I think i saw a couple blowfish and a baby tuna.

We've never been snorkeling before. I think it is pretty relaxing in some aspects, but kinda of stressful. It seems to be a bit like collecting, where I keep swimming around trying to see as much as I can before I wear out. Taking the camera along certainly added to my "collecting" neurosis, but makes it neat to show other folks.

Here is proof that Lela was snorkeling too.

Hawaii Zipline Action Fun Time

2008-11-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

Today we got up at 6:00 am to go on a zipline tour in the hills of Kaanapali on Maui. It was hard to get up so early (still adjusting to the time change - it's 5 hours earlier here than it is in Texas), but it was totally worth it.

The company that leads the tours, Skyline Eco-Adventure Tours, is pretty cool; the owners contribute a portion of each tour fee to Hawaii conservation. They, and other Maui business owners, take the money and buy huge tracts of land and then do absolutely nothing with it so that it stays commercial/tourism free and preserved for future generations of Hawaiians to enjoy anda also for Hawaiian wildlife to have a place to thrive.

Our tour guides, Casey and Frank, were super nice and funny, too, plus they completely put me at ease, although, I really wasn't nervous or scared one bit. There are a total of 8 ziplines on the course, but since it's rainy and windy here today we only got to do half the course for safety reasons, however, we didn't feel cheated at all. We got to repeat the 3rd and 4th lines over and over again, so we started feeling like old pros, and even tried a few tricks like running and jumping or doing 360 turns. We had such a fantastic time gliding above the gulches and the trees. In fact, I had so much fun that I told Alex I wanted to zipline every day for the rest of the trip!

Check out the video we made below. Also, big thanks to Lauren, Donna and Ryan Kucera, Bobbie Messalle, and the Wills family for making this fun activity possible! We seriously had a great time.

Also, if the video below looks crummy, you can also view it here, and it might look better.

Spa-tacular

2008-11-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok, I know that is a cheesy title for this post, but seriously, the spa at the Grand Wailea Resort is insane. It is so gorgeous. I was in little more than a terry-cloth bath robe, so I didn't have a place to stash my camera in order to take proper pictures of how beautiful and luxurious this place is, but I felt like I was a star because it was so nice and over the top.

There were amazing waterfall massage tubs where you sit down in a 1 person hot tub and press a button and water falls on your shoulders and back from 30 feet up. Then they had these fabulous tubs that all had special stuff added to them; there were 6 of them I think. One had seaweed in it, another had sea minerals, and another had a combination of papaya and some other stuff. They were all glorious and I loved them. Following that a woman loofahed my whole body, which felt totally awesome. Finally I had my actual treatment, which was soo relaxing and nice. I wanted to move to the spa.

A giant thank you to Emily Blundell, Angela & Vernon, Lauren Ellis, Hatim, and Chris Comfort for making this a reality. I wish I could have brought you all with me!

Home Away from Home

2008-11-20T19:00:00.000-08:00

Dear friends and family,

Hopefully the rest of Maui is as awesome as our condo because I think I'm never coming back. This place rules.

kthanxbai.

loaf,

Lela

P.S. Thank you so much to my mom, Al & Becky Sanders, Emily Blundell, Victoria McCoy, Dan & Clara Crandall, Malia & Farkas, Debra & Arlo Blue, and Jonathan Fretheim.

Pearl Harbor

2008-11-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

We scheduled our flights so that we'd have a 4 hour layover in Honolulu before flying on to Maui in order to have time to visit Pearl Harbor. We didn't totally time it right though because we got too worried that if we took the actual tour we wouldn't make it back to the airport in time. Never the less, Alex took some nice pictures of the USS Arizona memorial from the shore, and we had a nice time looking around the museum. While we were looking at the various monuments, Alex and I independently considered what Japanese and Japanese-American people's feelings are about the place and the memorial. The visit also reminded us both of our grandfathers and their roles in the armed forces during the war.

Flying First Class

2008-11-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

So pretty much I never want to not fly first class again.

As my close friends know, I HATE flying. It totally freaks me out, and I've been known to climb in to the same seat with my traveling companion or have full-blown panic attacks when not medicated. Somehow flying first class really takes the edge off, and it's not just because of all the free drinks they ply you with, though if I was a drinker that would certainly help I'm sure. All the fanciness completely took my mind off my fear of flying, and for whatever reason the flight just felt better and completely non-terrifying.

Hawaiian Airlines is completely top notch, let me tell you. We had a delicious breakfast of an omelet with cheese and a sort of chunky tomato sauce that was more Italian style than salsa-y with a side of ham, as well as a crepe stuffed with scrambled eggs, cheese, mushrooms and other various tasty things with a yummy mushroom sauce on top. There was also fresh pineapple and a totally awesome croissant that was super crispy and tasty. Another cool thing about flying first class on Hawaiian Airlines is that they give you a complimentary media player that is preloaded with several movies, TV shows, music etc. I watched Baby Mama, and started to watch Dark Knight, but then fell asleep. Unfortunately during my nap they passed out warm chocolate chip cookies and so I missed out. Anyone who knows me knows I heart cookies, so I was rather disappointed. I'll be sure not to nap on the flight home!

Big thanks to Chris Comfort, Monesha Deka, Ang & Vern Effenberger, Karey Green, David Sanders, Rigney & Anne Marie Sackley, Spencer & Ambrosia Studley, Whitney Watts, and Travis Thatcher for helping us get there!

Our first Post

2008-11-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Honeymoon, here we come!

Our wedding was awesome. Many pictures have already been posted and are linked from our wedding website.

Originally this was posted form my iPhone 3G using email.

Too bad MobileMe doesn't have many moblogging options. I mean, I can moblog with Gallery, but that only lets you send pictures. No actual blogging (or comments). We could blog with iWeb, but there are neither moblogging nor web-based clients. Not to mention, Blogger lets you have multiple authors.