Tag Archives: farmers market

ByteNight and Batman and other non-B adventures

I was supposed to get some work done today, but my computer has decided that today is a good day to throw a temper tantrum and refuse to connect to my linux desktop at work. My computer is like a child that I have to placate with kind words and loving pats in an effort to console it and make it work properly half of the time. Apparently my consoling hasn’t been up to par.

I haven’t been up to anything too crazy this week. I geeked out on Thursday night and went to an event called ByteNight at the Computer History Museum. I was a little disappointed because we were told food and drinks and the food was MIA (yes, I know, it was terrible), but the museum was kind of interesting. I feel like it was cool to go but I wouldn’t have paid money for it. It could’ve also been that I’d already been at work all day and wasn’t quite in a museum-going mood, but I saw some friends and had a good time overall. One thing I remembered, though, is how much I hate making small talk when I’m tired. It’s exhausting trying to think of interesting yet not invasive things to say to a stranger you met five minutes ago. There were a bunch of interns there and I met a few nice people, but I was a little relieved to escape away with my friends and wander through with people I already knew. Perhaps I’m just lazy.

I was going to have a quiet Friday night evening at home and do some work, but my internet decided to die completely so that was a bit of a fail. I managed to finish season 3 of Community instead, which was amazing. (But totally unproductive on my part). I also tried experiment two of cooking with polenta, and this one turned out to be much better. I like to think of it as pizza polenta, and it was ridiculously easy.

Pizza Polenta (for one)

Ingredients:

  • Half a package of prepared polenta
  • Marinara sauce
  • Cheese
  • Meat of your choosing, chopped into small pieces – I used sausage, but this could easily be changed

Directions:

  1. Cut the polenta into 1/2″ rounds. Lay them out on a baking pan (or in my case a casserole dish, because I don’t have a baking pan in this apartment).
  2. Spoon generous amounts of marinara sauce on top of each round, covering it fully. Sprinkle your meat on top.
  3. Add a layer of cheese – I like lots of cheese so I was pretty heavy handed with this.
  4. Bake in oven at 375 for about 25 minutes.

Yesterday I went to go see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. I liked it, but I wasn’t too impressed with the character development of the bad guys. I spent a lot of the movie trying to figure out why the bad guy was so pissed off at the world, and what kind of fashion statement he was trying to make with his mask. It’s worth seeing, but I felt like that part could have been fleshed out more.

Today I made my customary trip to the farmers’ market, did some laundry, skyped my parents – nothing too exciting. I will leave you a picture of the tomatoes we saw this morning though. If a fruit can be beautiful these ones definitely were.

 

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Return of the Sunshine

Oh, my god. I’ve forgotten how much I’m in love with the sun. I’ve just had the most beautifully sunny and gorgeous weekend ever, and it’s really all because of that giant ball of fire up in the sky. (Yes, I know it’s not really made of fire, but close enough).

I started it off really well by having dinner with my friend on Friday night. Last summer, we had a tradition of Friday night dinners on Castro Street in Mountain View, and I think it’s going to be continued. We went to Barracuda, a Japanese place, and had calamari, sushi and this amazing miso rice bowl with a ton of seafood. The fish in the rice bowl was some of the best white fish I’ve ever had – it was tender and flaky and oh so droolworthy.

Saturday morning I went for a run and ended up at a farmers’ market at the Sunnyvale Caltrain station. I love farmers’ markets – they’re always so fun and the food you get is so fresh. I mostly wandered and checked things out, but I picked up some fruit (which disappeared the same day…into my stomach) and bread. I think my favourite thing about these markets is the vibe – everyone is just kind of bustling around and talking and it gives you a really cool sense of community.

I then proceeded to spend my afternoon at my pool.

I really couldn’t resist. I haven’t seen proper sunshine since last summer sometime. My book and I spent some quality time together, I got a bit of a sunburn, and life was glorious.

I went for dinner with some of the other interns at a southern Indian restaurant. It was pretty interesting because (according to my knowledgable friends) I’ve probably mostly eaten northern Indian food at home, so the food was different from what I was expecting. It was good though! All vegetarian and a lot of rice-based dishes. I couldn’t pronounce anything.

Today, my roommate and I checked out another farmers’ market, this time at the Mountain View caltrain. I could probably go to farmers’ markets every day of the week and not get bored. I picked up some dried fruit and sampled something from almost every stall.

A funny thing happened to us though – we were sitting on Castro Street drinking bubble tea when all of a sudden a random parade began to go by. It was bizarre because there were girls dressed up like Disney princesses mixed with random older people wearing suits or yoga pants and small kids in fancy wear. We couldn’t figure out what it was for, but it was fun to watch it go by. I think it might have been Portuguese-related because this lady came by and handed us cards for Portuguese Day (or something).

I’m also really excited for tonight because I’m reuniting with some of my favourites from last summer, who I haven’t seen in forever! I miss them big time and can’t wait to see their pretty faces.