the first and last time i make korean soybean soup in my apt

the raw ingredients before the soybeans, tofu and water

so working with korean fermented soybeans is a very smell process. working with homemade fermented soybeans is a lot worse. and i think it's pretty smelly and i grew up with this stuff. guess what my roommates thought. i think they were debating if it smelled more like vomit or poop. to their credit i think they wisely decided it was somewhere in between.

in any case, it was my first time making it and i was curious to know how it would turn out, beyond the fact that one of my roommates couldn't stand the smell and actually had to leave the living room to his smell free bedroom.

still, having waded through all the objections, it turned out pretty good for a first try.

the main ingredients:

• fermented soybeans
• onions
• green onions
• large few anchovies
• dried mushrooms
• dried shrimp
• garlic
• tofu
  

fermented bean soup with tofu

overall impressions:
i would have liked to put some meat in there, but unfortunately i forgot to pick up a little pork for the stew. also the addition of potatoes would have added more starch and body to the soup to make it more into a stew (which is how i prefer it). i also didn't strain out the larger pieces of fermented soybeans which i would probably do in the future - except my roommates would probably evict me for trying it.

galbi with kimchi and pickled radish

the saving grace was that i had made a big batch of korean bbq, galbi, so the guys were pretty happy with that. and once that started on the stove, the smell of the soup was definitely overshadowed. the only thing if i wish i had was some good dried seaweed. but we'll do that next time.

upside down teacups

creative design is always a plus right?

i'm not sure how they did this... but i love the concept of using tea cups and saucers as lights. the integration into the shelf is probably the hardest component since it needs to hide the wiring, but i love the idea and could see this adding the right minor touches to a small cafe. or as a shelve/light in a breakfast room. the shelve can work as a place to put cookbooks, magazines and other items, why the lights work in the evenings when the breakfast room needs more ambient light.



[via apartment therapy LA]

cut brooklyn

having used my new knife for the last two months, i have to say having a quality knife is worth the $100 for sure. first of it's a joy to use - full stop. cutting is easy and fast. but more importantly if it's probably maintained it will last forever.

i hadn't thought of a knife as an investment, something that could actually be given to someone down the road, but i think i've been convinced that super quality knifes can be.

that doesn't mean that such an investment need only be a purely utilitarian tool. these days true craftsmanship seems hard to come by. everything is mass produced and nothing seems to be made in small batches with care. (except kettle chips it seems - if you believe the marketing).

so i've stumbled across joel bukiewicz, the owner/operator, of cut brooklyn. he makes craftsman knife of superb quality. the knives start around $200+ and have a very distinct look to them. from the video you can tell they are razor sharp.

so if anyone has a few bills they are looking to get rid of - feel free to buy me a sweet knife.

[via cut brooklyn & cool hunting]

blackbird

an amuse bouche: cuttlefish with avacado puree and watercress


west coast mussel soup with white fish, saffron, garlic and basil (super salty)



sauteed skatewing with sarsaparilla, sorrel, pickled pear, parmesan and fried rosemary


slagel farms organic pork belly with parsnip-olive, black eyed peas,
black trumpet mushrooms and sweet potato jus

SY's entree image was blurry, so i can't include it here,
but the name of the dish is below:
roasted monkfish loin with black sesame panisse, endive marmalade and pomegranate


toasted coffee cake with parsnips, black walnut dacquoise and coconut pudding


meyer lemon curd with quince, pumpkin seeds and elderflower sorbet

SY kindly bought me dinner at blackbird in the west loop. the atmosphere was definitely more hipster than evanston to say the least. SY noted it had a relaxed NYC feel to it. the late twenties crowd was in full effect even though it was a tuesday night (although it didn't fill up - its sister restaurant avec was packed).

the service was always great throughout the dinner. the water glasses were always full and help was always around to help you.

the food presentation and construction was amazing and unique. the use of sweet elements in main courses and savory in desserts was definitely interesting. they never took away from the overall dish. they only added another level to them.

unfortunately almost the entire dinner was too salty for both of us. so much so that i was almost too hard to eat one of the appetizers. i let them know that they should be concerned and to their credit they sent over three different people to ask me what had happened and how they could best correct the issue. my main course was properly seasoned thankfully, and very delicious. but SY's dish was still a bit too salty. and that was a shame because the monkfish was beautifully prepared.


blackbird
619 w. randolph st.
chicago il, 60661
[link]

spring break: UK and amsterdam

the tentative schedule!


march 17-19: dublin
(for st. patrick's day)


march 19-21: edinburgh
(for scotch, castles and bagpipes)


march 22-24: london
(and england in general)


march 24-26: amsterdam
(undisclosed activities)

status: tickets are purchased, housing is still in the works

modigliani

you know how people ask you what your favorite "x" is? favorite movie, book, band, song, etc. well i have a hard time with those questions. there are too many choices - too many things i love to just go and pick one as the head and shoulders favorite for a category. i always ask if we can narrow down the field... can i pick my favorite classical pianist - probably chopin although rach does rock my boat (pun most definitely intended). often times i don't get such latitude in my conversations.

fortunately my favorite painter (which isn't cutting up artist too much - it's hard to compare the different mediums if you ask me) is amadeo modigliani. and italian painted around the turn of the century. he died young (at the age of 35) which is a terrible shame because his work was really amazing!

artist's notes:

• he is known primarily for his portraits which often have a manneristic anatomy (especially the elongated neck)
  
• the subjects also often have a strong african tribal mask influence. as seen by the almond shaped eyes with no pupils and the long elliptical faces
• the faces are almost always tilted to the left or right (social psychology has a meaningful section on the passive signals of tilting - just do a google search for head tilt and psychology. there are still papers talking about it)
  
• the colors are often very muted natural tones (i.e. lots of brown shades)
• the painting stroke style, i think, resembles a cezanne-esque etching. especially for the backgrounds of paintings and his landscapes. but uses a more delicate line for figures with almost no texture to the stroke. (almost like an illustration at times)

ok i'm going to stop with this cause i'm having flashbacks of my art history papers from high school! although it was one of my favorite classes in high school, along with microeconomics. (let's not discuss how both art history and economics were my top two - clear it tells you i have some weird issues.)

in 2005, during one my very few days off as an ibanker, i flew to dc to visit my dear friend I and check out the largest US exhibit of modigliani works. there were around 90+ pieces which is a huge percentage of his works (remember he died young). it was a great exhibit, i remember I saying i was acting really weird, i was completely mesmerized and just trying to soak it all it. the pieces were on loan from many different museums and they were going to go aboard to europe and the opportunity to see them all again would be very difficult.

two lights and a girl

so i can't remember when i shot this photo actually. i think it was in 2005. it was so long ago i wasn't logging the image capture data. but i was the first time i worked with a number of artists (hair and makeup) who i would later work with repeated. it was a good shoot over all - we were shooting for a competition - i was brought in for the shooting. the only really annoying part was that the shoot side was so far from where i lived. it was in deep in orange county so it took almost an hour to get down there. i think it was near disneyland.

in any case, the polka dot shirt and blue dot over her idea was my idea. i think it was a nice mix of ideas. we also shot something other looks including a geisha style that everyone seems to think is a star wars thing. haha!

the set up was simple - moderately high shoot through umbrellas. one might have been a soft box, but i think both were shoot-thru's.

things i want: zero gravity chair

i first saw this on the web a couple years ago. first off it's a cool piece of design. it works as a normal chair, a posture correcting chair and a zero gravity chair. to move between the different functions is really simple due to the design of the angles of the back/bottom of the chair. supposedly all you need to do is shift your weight and the chair will move with you. (how very segway-esque of it) i've always wanted a lounging chair and but haven't been able to justify a lounging chair with limited space. usually i'll end up with a love seat sofa which can seat two normally, but still be great to lounge on when people aren't over. still when i have a lot of reading to do, it would be great to have something like this to lean back on and proceed to quickly fall asleep in.

then again knowing me, i'd probably wake up and not remember i was in the chair and fall out of the damn thing and hurt myself. but that shouldn't stop you from getting one. unfortunately this is just a concept chair from the dutch designer firm, stokke, who primarily make baby furniture. still a guy can dream.

[via stokke]

risotto and salad - a balancing act

most of the ingredients before i hacked them up

so i've put off this post for a while now. at least two weeks, so i need to write it or i'll forget what was in it. i made a two part dinner, but they were complementary.

• the salad was a spinach salad with roasted pumpkin seeds, manchego cheese and a honey lemon vinaigrette. it was topped with a seared rib eye steak (had a great salty crust to it). the salad was the balancing act for the main dish which was...
• mushroom, asparagus and leek risotto with bacon

the salad was very straight forward to make, i need the lemon to really cut through the richness of the risotto. and it worked out perfectly. the risotto on its own would have been too heavy.

the risotto was a multi step process to say the least. the asparagus was first blanched and the vegs were all cooked separately before the risotto itself was started. the chicken broth was heated on the side and was up to temp before starting the risotto. i used a few pieces of bacon (for a meal that fed 4.5, N counts as at least 1.5 persons). after rendering i removed the crispy bacon to add back in later in the process. then the rice process started. used white wine before moving to the broth. about two thirds of the way in, i added the vegs and the bacon back in. it took longer than expected overall and dinner was served a good half hour late.

overall it was a good first real shot at risotto. i had a made a couple in college, but it was in a big group, this was the first time i had made the whole thing from top to bottom. next time i'd really liked to make a seafood one, maybe make my own shrimp stock from shells. we'll see though, it's a lot of work.

the finished product

netbook purchased

samsung nc-10 (not mine, mine won't be here for a few days)

after many late nights reading about netbooks and battery life and all sorts of reviews... (not to mention two false starts in purchasing them) i finally bought a samsung nc-10. i actually bought a asus and another samsung (both of which i cancelled) before finally buying the one i did. the main reason was that the time i spent thinking about buying one wasn't worth the delay of waiting to get one a couple months down the line. it was just easier and better for me to get one and move on to bigger and better things. (the quotebook is now the top priority on the project list, followed by spring break planning - post on that coming up soon).

the main reason i got the one that did was for the battery life and the build quality.

• lots of reviews up the battery life with normal use (including wi-fi) at 6-6.5 hours. that's prefect for what i'd like to use it for. be it all day at school or on my spring break trip (it also has a built in sd card reader so that makes my life a lot easier).
• the keyboard is also listed as best-in-class and with it being smaller than the standard keyboard and being spoiled by the thinkpad keyboards which are simply industry best-in-class. i figured what the hey.
• the biggest negative is that it's more expensive than most netbooks (although you pay for quality so it's not a huge deal). also new and better netbooks are bound to come around, but again it's not a huge concern for me. in 18 months if they're leaps and bounds ahead then we'll figure something else out.
  

the only thing that really stinks is that the netbook won't come for a few days.

the best meal of the day

the hands down best meal of the day has to be breakfast. do you remember the old denny's commercials about having breakfast for dinner? the guy was always wearing flannel. anyway i digress... there is something about eating the all american meal that just makes me so happy.

a couple weekends ago, we went to walker brothers' in wilmette. the guys had forty niners, which i hadn't had before, but they were great! super thin, almost crepe like pancakes that seemed to be cooked directly on the heat on only one side, so the top side (which ends up being the bottom when served) is soft and just barely cooked. super delicious. N of course also ordered an entire second meal. he and i got the same thing.

my favorite breakfast has to be corn beef hash with eggs, hash browns and a side of sourdough toast. it's probably been my fav since middle school. i remember the first time i had corn beef hash i thought it was terrible. it was back in my youth, when i thought mixing of foods was a terrible idea. so the idea that beef and potatoes were mixed together was just blasphemy. clearly i've gotten over it by now. corn beef hash is actually my mother's favorite breakfast food too. so call me a mom's boy, but i know what i'm going to order.

Walker Brothers Original Pancake House
153 Green Bay Rd
Wilmette, IL 60091

Greece - Spring 2002

in 2002, i went to greece with W's family and beside playing the de facto tour guide (being a classics almost major makes you a supposed source of information), i took a bunch of photos with a film camera. my old n90s. all the images were shot in either black & white or color as seen and then scanned into the computer circa 2002 so the scanning quality wasn't as great as it is these days. that being said i worked pretty hard to get the images to have a nostalgic feel to them. the black & white in particular i did a lot of tweaking with settings and the film to get the texture i was looking forward. i miss the days of finesse. anyway greece was great. i never got a chance to go to the islands so that's a bummer, just all the historical sites i had learned about for four years. the next place i really wanted to go after greece was italy - the other classical location, but i didn't get the chance to go until 2007 before bschool (five years later).

from the top of an amphitheatre

i can't remember what temple this was

a random greek road, but its a recreation of a bresson-cartier image i LOVE

from the top of a monastray looking over a valley

sight of the original olympics (well sorta)

valentine's day: swan lake

so valentine's day has come and gone. and while i have no exciting valentines news. i did make swan creampuffs for a dinner party. it's been ages since i last made them. the last time i can remember was back in college actually. so it's been a LONG time. nevertheless they turned out well. i think i misjudged the swan neck piping, it was a bit too big at first and then a bit too small. but still on the whole they were great.

the whipped cream was hand whipped of course and super yummy. thankfully i had a handmixer this time. i've literally hand whipped whip cream dozens of times, and it's not something i look forward to do anytime in the near future.

oh people have asked where i learned to make this. i can't remember really. i first made them in high school. desserts were actually my entry in the cooking world. (even though i'm not a big fan of sweets). on the whole though, cream puffs are one of the simplest desserts to make. pretty much just water, salt, sugar, flour, butter and eggs. plus the whipped cream later on and the powdered sugar on top. probably took me 1.5 hours from start to finish. but there was a good amount of waiting time in the middle. hell i took a shower while waiting.

things i want: ring flash edition

one of the many photo toys i've wanted for ages is a ring flash. but unfortunately, the one i really want, the profoto ring flash, costs at least $900 not to mention the attachments and the power pack, which in and of itself costs another $2,000.

so i'm glad a camera mounted flash version came out. now i'm not sure i want to spend the $200 it costs, but i hear the build quality is good. the strobist has given a pretty good review.

if i was shooting alot more these days, the decision to buy it wouldn't be too hard, but these days i dont' shoot too often, so maybe with some time off this summer, i'll shoot more and grab one of these. i think the storage of the thing is also a bit awkward since it doesn't really collapse. (and it isn't adjustable for different cameras - another little annoyance).

i think the netbook is higher on the is of things to buy than this baby. but sooner or later, she'll be in the bag.

[link to ray flash product page]

notcouture

looking for a place for interesting fashion trends?

looking to buy your lady friend something that is way more tasteful than she thinks you're capable of?

look no further. i love notcouture cause it always finds great pieces that you might actually by for someone. most of the stuff is for women, but there are a few things for guys. i was pretty tempted by an old partner style leather brief case.

the coat to the left i thought was great. the cut definitely something i hadn't seen recently. although i'm not sure if the short cut sleeves would work in a place like chicago, maybe in the spring or fall. the balloon shape of the bottom of the coat i think is what makes the coat.

so it being valentine's day, i figured i'd add something that the boys might want. just end over to agent provocateur. a lingerie boutique that featured kate moss as a the spokesmodel.

5 minute setup and a couple friends

the interesting thing about the shoot was that the ambient light was still on. i couldn't turn it off because i shot during a club fair. but with the right settings i managed to kill the ambient light without losing the strength of the strobes. the photos themselves were fun and needed little if any modifications in photoshop. a little curves and color correction (due to the mixed light readings).

image data:

ISO: 100
Aperture: f/13
Shutter: 1/60

Flashes
Manual mode
Power: ¼ + 0.3
Zoom: 70mm
Through umbrella
2 feet away on each side

ju-jistu and aikido

i spent a good nine years doing ju-jitsu. under the ju-jitsu umbrella were a number of more specific disciplines that i studied.
things like

• judo (throwing)
• aikido (non grabbing defense)
• wari-jistu (battlefield techniques)
• pressure point
• joint lock
• weapons
• iai-jistu (swordsmanship)

and while there were many great practical things i learned from studying what is translated as the gentle way. our goal was never to actively harm people, with the except of wari-jitsu, which were battle field techniques and were meant to inflict as much damage as quickly as possible in order to end the fight. many of the martial arts have a large philosophical component to them. having a deep understanding of the philosophy of the art helped to improve techniques and improve the quality of your life over all.

aikido was developed as a peaceful form of self defense. is can be translated as "the way of harmonious spirit" or "the way of the unified life energy". not exactly the kind of name that strikes fear in your enemies right?

aikido in its strictest form has two interesting ruless:

• the first major rules of aikido is that you are not allowed to act first. that means all the techniques are reactive. you can be beat people up after learning the techniques, because they all require someone to act upon them in order to engage them. for me this was a big deal. restrained reactive strength is a hidden power. the key learning for me was that you don't have to go around telling people how strong you are, if they test you, you can lay it out there and that's more than enough.
• the other somewhat odd rule is that you are not allowed to make a fist in aikido. you're not even allowed to grab someone. so you traditional striking, can't punch a guy who is trying to punch you. you can't even grab him when he's grabbing you and pushing you around. so you've got to be thinking... what the hell kind of martial art doesn't allow punching? the idea was that you didn't need to punch a guy to defend yourself. you don't need to meet your opponents aggression with equal or greater aggression in order to defeat him and save yourself. there must be a better way. i think in life this is too often how we try to settle confrontations, escalation.
  

so you can engage until someone is trying to beat the crap out of you and you're not allowed to strike back or grab the guy. great... what the hell can you do? i mean the guy wants to beat the stuffing out of you....

instead of trying to match your opponent's aggression, in aikido you use your "chi", "qi", energy, force, momentum against them. so instead of pushing against something that is pushing you... you pull... and add your energy or momentum to their own. that's why it's call the way of the unified life energies.

the first lesson technique i learned was to learn to block a strike and pull the person closer to me... the idea was that if you do it right, the person will fall forward, because they aren't expecting you to pull them forward. they are expecting either to hit you or for you to resist their momentum with your own. now i know this doesn't sound like much of a technique, but if done right... and if there is a big brick wall behind me... there is a good chance the guys face will smash right into that wall. and all i had to do was block and avoid a punch. let the wall do the striking.

in think in life the lesson is similar, we'll always come to situations were the energy, momentum is against us... and pushing against it will only make us tired and most of the time, we'll lose. why not instead take that momentum and use it as a positive force. think: "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade". this was just another more concrete way for me to think about it. the additional detail here, is the minimized use of energy in getting things done. a brick wall can do more damage to a guy's face than my fist. it's much harder and can't break.

the amazing thing about aikido is that a grandmaster can take on a roomful of skilled martial artists on his own and not break a sweat. he is so good at using our energy to hurt us, he barely uses any of his own. while i was getting tossed around the room i kept thinking, wouldn't it be great to be able to harness the energy of my enemies and even those around me to help me get things done. so i learned delegation flying across a room at the age of 14.

the last thing i wanted to say as that just because this is a self defense martial art, doesn't mean it's not powerful or dangerous. because people can take your momentum and add to it. it's much like taking a merry-go-round and instead of pushing against the momentum, adding more and more spin to make it faster. but after it gets fast enough, if you sudden stop the merry-go-round, everyone flies off.

case in point: there is a wrist lock takedown in ju-jitsu. it's a great way to disable someone who grabs your shirt. but if you use aikido you can easily break the guy's wrist with almost no effort. what's worse you can dislocation his shoulder and make him land on his head first with minimal effort. (a version of the technique is shown in the picture above). so yeah... they ain't fooling around.

what a great find!

so my sister sent me this link because she thought i would love it. she knows me too well! this is a crazy awesome site!!! i mean sloppy joe's on a donut? that' is genius....

but i have to say the best one that i actually might be tempted to eat is the double bacon hamburger fatty melt. i mean using bacon grilled cheese sandwiches as slices of "bread" for a quad stacker hamburger melt is amazing. i'm kinda speechless. it makes me want to eat white castle. mmmm.... white castle.


[via thisiswhyyourefat.com]

grey, black and LIME green

while i know it goes against many of the home decor rules in the US in general. i'm a big fan of dark colors in rooms. i know, i know it makes the rooms look smaller and darker and light doesn't reflect well and all that stuff, but it's just a lot cooler since everything is so bland in most houses. the condo in LA we did with dark brown wood floors and a grey and deep blue combination for the living room and kitchen. the blue was only on one wall in the living room (but a very big wall and in all of the kitchen) it gave it a more modern feel and didn't make the room seem small at all. it also helped that the living room received a lot of light during the day.

as for this photo - i think black is very bold. i would probably only prefer it for a den or a study, and this one seems to look like such a room. but i love the grey stripes and especially the lime green sofa. maybe people know i'm not a fan of the color green in most cases, almost always in clothes... it reminds me of shrubbery and trees. but i've warmed up to lime green and here it works great as an accent.

i don't know if i'd go with the cowhide rug on the floor... that's a bit much for me. but the high gloss black paint on the door is pretty sweet - good contrast with the matte finish of the rest of the room.
[via apartment therapy LA]

rustic comfort food: how a carrot stole the show

there are few things better than really fresh vegetables!
(carrots, yukon gold potatoes, red onion, garlic)

the same ingredients, but chopped up with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme

after roasting in the oven for 45 minutes at 400 degrees

sauteed chicken breast with bacon, garlic and melted cheese

while the main course was supposed to be the chicken breast (which turned out great, the use of bacon helped to keep the chicken moist as it cooked). the added cheese was a luxury more than anything else while it cooked through in the oven.

but what really stole the show was the super sweet carrots in the roasted vegs. i added no sweeteners to the vegs, but the carrots turns out to be super sweet. having younger carrots i think helped a lot (and of course a little salt helps draw out the flavor). they also had a great texture to them, with good initial bite leading to tender center.

actually a friend later came over and picked through the roasting dish and ate all the leftover carrots! so you know it's gonna be good.