lio evilo

Ahoy!

2010-06-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the high seas! I'm aboard the USNS Mercy right now, working with Project Hope, an NGO serving with the Pacific Partnership to provide health care services to folks in Vietnam and Cambodia this summer. It's hard to believe I'm living on a ship again after 5 years. This ship is bigger, more crowded, and way hotter than the Peace Boat, but internet and phone calls to the US are free and the work we are doing is pretty cool, so I can't really complain. :) It was quite a trek to get here- San Diego-LA-Taipei-Saigon-Quy-Nhon-USNS Mercy. We had to take a speedboat out to meet the ship since it wasn't able to dock right at the port. I would post photos of the whole trip so far, but internet is so slow here that I would probably get back to the states before very many of them loaded. We left May 28th and we'll be returning to San Diego on July 4th. Photos to come!

We spent a day in Saigon, wandering the streets, visiting sites- most notable was the War Remnants Museum which was partially an open air museum. War makes me so sick. Really. Why does it keep having to happen over and over? Why are humans seemingly incapable of learning anything? Anyway, if you happen to go to Saigon, it's definitely worth a visit. It's only something like 75 cents for entry and the remnants and photographs they have are pretty cool.

As you may expect, everything here is super cheap- Rachel Ray could do a $4 a day show here. The food is GREAT. I could eat pho and spring rolls and rice paper dumplings filled with random meat and fish forever. The chili peppers here... are great, but watch out- they're HOT! I put one sliced chili in my pho thinking nothing of it, but had to take it out after a little while because the Scofield factor shot through the roof. Still, absolutely delicious, and with a shake made from fresh strawberries, watermelon or other delectable fruit, it can't be beat. After the first day we traveled to Quy Nhon to meet the ship, but the Navy hadn't cleared us access to board the ship yet, so we ended up staying at a beachside resort instead for the day/night. If you're ever in the area, the Seagull Hotel has sweet VIP service for $20 a night, right on the beach with a pool overlooking the beach! The food at the hotel isn't amazing, but the spa, icy AC, free internet and awesome views make up for it. :-) I got a 50 minute aromatherapy massage for $19. We originally had been told we'd be boarding the ship in Danang, but somehow the itinerary changed, and we ended up a few hours south of Danang. After a day of R&R we ended up taking a small speedboat out to meet the ship the next afternoon.

Our barracks are more spacious than the ones we had originally seen on the ship when we did a general tour, so we were happy about the extra space, although had we not seen the tighter quarters, we might have been less than grateful. Our bunks are stacked 3 beds high, and I hit my head on the ceiling and my locker door at least once a day. If my memory starts to fade, someone make a note of my head trauma from this trip please, yeah?

We started work the next day, and have been working through the med surg, peds, OR and PACU areas. The patients are trickling in, but things are getting busier as the people running the show become more fluent with all the systems. We are seeing a lot of cleft palates and cleft lip babies and adult burn victims. When I say burns, I am not talking about fires, but domestic abuse in the form of battery acid and hot oil burns. This type of abuse is not uncommon. I am at a loss as to how this type of thing happens, how people do these things to people close to them, how our minds work as humans and the awful things we are capable of given a certain set of circumstances.

Travels, travails

2010-05-14T11:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time. I have traded this site and my art and cooking and love of life in for school and homework and days spent in the hospital with sick and dying people. Now I am on break, and today, I trade it in for a broken heart and broken dreams. So although I am back here today I don't bring to you any photos or dishes, just a song from Belle & Sebastian.

Ooh! Get me away from here I'm dying
Play me a song to set me free
Nobody writes them like they used to
So it may as well be me
Here on my own now after hours
Here on my own now on a bus
Think of it this way
You could either be successful or be us
With our winning smiles, and us
With our catchy tunes, and us
Now we're photogenic
You know, we don't stand a chance
Oh, I'll settle down with some old story
About a boy who's just like me
Thought there was love in everything and everyone
You're so naive!
After a while they always get it
They always reach a sorry end
Still it was worth it as I turned the pages solemnly, and then
With a winning smile, the boy
With naivety succeeds
At the final moment, I cried
I always cry at endings

Oh, that wasn't what I meant to say at all
From where I'm sitting, rain
Washing against the lonely tenement
Has set my mind to wander
Into the windows of my lovers
They never know unless I write
"This is no declaration, I just thought I'd let you know goodbye"
Said the hero in the story
"It is mightier than swords
I could kill you sure
But I could only make you cry with these words"

Oh, get me away, I'm dying...

Joshua Tree

2009-08-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

This summer I took a road trip out to Joshua Tree National Park. My cousin, a writer, was chosen to write for the artists' community in Joshua Tree and spent a few months living just outside the park.

The drive out to Joshua Tree was beautiful and deserted...

The trees and other flora were starkly graceful

While there, my cousin also befriended some of the locals

Virgin of Vegas

2009-06-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

Made my first trip to Vegas at the ripe young age of 29 for a friend's bachelorette party. Pretty fun weekend, involving champagne brunches, Cirque du Soleil, outlet malls, Studio 54 and a Valley of Fire.

I love the Wynn... thematically filled with butterflies and all things colorfully whimsical, it's just a happy place to be.

Not to mention the random water creatures!

Ah yeah, and there are casinos too. Voila!

We tried some of the fancy food, and located some chocolate fountains... I also created a yummy strawberry ice dessert with condensed milk, but was so busy eating that I don't have photos of it. Will have to wait for those!

Valley of Fire photos to come...

Ranunculus! - The Flower Fields at Carlsbad

2009-04-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

Ventured down south a bit to The Flower Fields at Carlsbad. Open March through May, the fields are bursting with color. The fields are widely planted with Ranunculus flowers in an array of fruity colors. They also had special little gardens with some of my favorites, like foxglove and sweet peas.

Me laughing at the person taking my photo's bewilderment at the burst function on my camera.

~Foxglove~

~Sweet peas~

MOD- Museum of Death

2009-04-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

Visited the Museum of Death up in Hollywood this weekend. Definitely not a place for the weak of heart, or people prone to nightmares or acid-tripping. It's a small museum just off Hollywood Blvd that houses some of the most interesting and disturbing relics of the history of death in the US. Everything from embalming tools, to mortuary matchbooks, various sized coffins, shrunken heads, taxodermy, and streaming videos of autopsies and burials. We respected the sweet caretakers' request not to take photos inside. There were walls covered with paintings and letters written by serial killers, some of their artwork, books, magazines, photos of victims, etc. Also on display was a recreation of the bunk beds and corpses of the Heaven's Gate cult, with actual clothing and head rags acquired from the bodies of the cult members after death.

Visiting the museum left me with... a sense of horror and despair, and also perhaps a deeper insight into the psychology of various killers and their inner drives. The people who ran the museum were very nice and informative- they happened to have siamese turtles, lovingly named after the famous siamese twins, Eng and Chang Bunker.

A big thanks to the museum caretakers, and peace and love to Eng and Chang.

Julian

2009-03-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

last November, i went on a family excursion down to Julian, a mellow little town that lies in the north eastern hills of San Diego County. we had hoped to do some apple picking, but we had just missed the end of the season by a few weeks. still, there were plenty of apples in the pies to be had. along with rhubarb pies. and strawberry pies. and cherry rhubarb pies! we chose a place called Moms for our afternoon feast.

my nephew and sister are ready for some pie!

i have confidence in a baker that has a strong appreciation for the powers of butter.

we watched the baking process in line as the warm scents of baked goods wafted past our noses...

and our patience was well rewarded. voila! freshly baked hot apple pie a la mode~

late night state of mind

2009-03-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

if there were a god of small things...

and his little dog too.

sakura, sakura

2009-03-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted- just haven't been pulling out my camera to shoot much since cold weather tends to send me indoors seeking warmth. Signs of spring have been popping up here and there though, and once again, my camera and I have emerged. Last weekend was the annual Hiroken Hanami Picnic at Beilenson Park in Los Angeles. Hanami literally translates into flower viewing, but in Japan, it's traditionally the viewing of and celebration of cherry blossom season. What a beautiful thing to celebrate!

Chicken Tikka Masala

2008-12-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

I've been craving Indian food for the longest time. And while the origins of this dish may not truly be Indian according to some sources, I usually end up going to an Indian restaurant to get it, thus the association. With so many recipes online and so many cookbooks, it's hard to decide which recipe to try, especially when you're desperate to get it perfect on the first go! So I did a little research, found a few recipes that sounded promising, and proceeded to create a new one based on what sounded right from the few chosen. The end result- sheer deliciousness. While admittedly it different from the versions I've dreamt about from far off places, it was nice enough to satisfy my senses and leave me with a rounded belly. Behold, my chicken tikka masala.

I marinated about a pound and a half of chicken breast that was cut into cubes in a mixture of 1/2c. beaten plain yogurt, 2 tsp of fresh ginger and garlic paste, juice of half a lemon, 1 tsp each of coriander powder, chili powder, garam masala, 2 tsp of cumin, 1/4 tsp turmeric powder, some salt, and some green cardamom seeds. Let that sit in the fridge for an hour. I also wanted to have some potatoes in the mix, so I diced some potatoes and fried them to add in later.

For the gravy, I chopped up an onion finely, fried it in a mix of about 1 1/2 tbsp of oil and butter, with another tsp of ginger and garlic mashed up, and thin slices of one serrano pepper. When it all seemed to become one mixture, I added a few tbsp of tomato paste, a tbsp of chili powder, 1/4 tsp turmeric powder, 2 tsp coriander powder, salt and black pepper, a pinch of paprika, 2 tsp of cumin and a little water. Mixed it up and let the sauce thicken, then added about a half cup of heavy cream. Then I added the potatoes and let them soak in the flavors on low heat. By then, the chicken was marinated long enough, so I pan fried that since we don't have a grill, and poured everything into the pot with the gravy and potatoes. Mixed it all up, let it simmer for about 10 minutes, and then it was ready to serve. I garnished it with a bit of freshly chopped cilantro. Yumminess.

Photo editing

2008-11-13T23:01:00.001-08:00

It's like painting without the imperfections, mess and fun smells. I started teaching myself how to use some new photo editing software yesterday, after my dear friend and amazing photographer lovingly chided me, calling me a "booby" and told me to get with the program. How did I do? Is the first one totally overkill? This is a photo that I posted recently from Laguna, edited with 2 different programs. I tried to play with the saturation, but when placed consecutively, the top one looks a little Disney, and the bottom a little pasty (this was posted previously). Hmm. What do you think?

Chicken pita

2008-11-13T22:23:00.000-08:00

Was feeling a bit lazy and a bit Mediterranean the other day... made a chicken pita sandwich with all the fixins. Grilled kabob-flavored marinated chicken, sliced up some marinated artichokes, roasted red bell peppers, kalamata olives, feta cheese, spinach, tomatoes, seasoned with a little balsamic vinegar and oil, and a little salt and pepper. All that was left to do was grab a warm pita, slice it in half, peel it open, and stuff away! Yum.

Top of the World

2008-11-11T16:55:00.000-08:00

Or just Laguna, that is. I am enjoying the mild fall season in southern California... the days are great, and the sunsets too.

The ocean is teeming with life!

Me and my partner in crime on this beautiful day. He's kind of shy.

Gratuitous sunset shots.

Carne Asada

2008-11-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

So it looks like I'm back on my cooking run- hold onto your drool! I am still encountering the same issue of photographing and cooking and eating all at the same time... the photos are not quite what I would hope them to be. In all my eagerness to swiftly capture the visual essence of the food before satisfying the rest of my senses, I find the minor imperfections that could easily be forgiven with a little finger swiping and licking in all other cases linger on in the photo. *Sigh*

Let there be carne asada!

There are probably more than 100 ways to make carne asada, to marinate the meat, and the toppings that can go on top are plentiful. If you'd like to know how I made mine, here is the general recipe. I eyeball my measurements in almost all of my cooking, so not much can be said for accuracy in the recipe, but I'll do my best to provide general estimates:

Take 1 lb. of ranchera steak/skirt steak, and place in bowl. Dice a quarter of an onion finely, add to the meat. Sprinkle garlic salt lightly over each piece of meat, add in the juice of two limes, 2 pinches of cumin, a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce, freshly ground black pepper, and if you're feeling a little gringo, a splash or two of A1 sauce- the kind with cracked black pepper flavoring is nice. Mix it all up, let it stand- the longer the better, then grill it all up till done, chop it into pieces, and there you go. Put the meat on some warm corn tortillas, add a dollop or two of Mexican cream, a little pico de gallo or salsa of some sort and you have a delicious, and very affordable little meal. 1 lb. of meat serves 2-3 people.

Open breakfast sammie

2008-11-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

I love this breakfast snack! It's simple, flexible, and oh so tasty. I use Trader Joe's Four Cheese sourdough bread, but have also used regular sourdough from anywhere else, and it works well too. Toast the bread lightly, spread on some cream cheese, add a layer of tomato slices, and dust the top with a little salt n pepper, or even better, some lemon pepper, or Goya's adobo seasoning- the ones with the red or yellow tops are tried and true in my book. :) Yummy in my tummy.

The incredible, edible egg.

2008-11-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

I'd never run across this before... but I think I had twins! The two yolks that are attached to each other hatched out of the same egg.

Traveling on a budget

2008-10-31T22:49:00.001-07:00

These were posters inside one of the Border Control buildings.

The stuffing of the passenger seat had been removed, and this man had been sewed into the seat. An infant car seat had been placed over the man/chair to disguise some of the patchwork that had gone into tucking him away. Here he is, partially disassembled.

Here a woman was hidden away inside the dashboard.

Cruzando fronteras

2008-10-31T22:18:00.000-07:00

The annual APHA conference was in San Diego this week. I joined a Border Health tour down to San Ysidro to visit a bi-national clinic there, and was also able to enter quarantine HQ at the border.

Dr. Talavera is standing in the central square of the border clinic, sharing some of its history with us.

They are building a new neonatal center this year, with hopes to complete the project by the end of next year.

From inside border security, we could see the heavy traffic coming through the líneas.

Someone was apprehended while we were visiting...

This the western-most point of the border between the US and Mexico. They say that within the next year, there will probably be a triple layered metal fence to replace what currently shares the likeness of a shabby beach hostel property line drawn in the sand. Although not depicted in this shot, there is constant military surveillance by land, air and sea. American territorialism at its finest.

I really wished I'd had my other camera with me that day. Perhaps one day I will return, but surely things will have changed by then.

nursing

2008-10-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

A short visit to San Diego brought a romantic little smile to my face for having chosen nursing.

i miss japan...

2008-09-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

A day in the life of a piece of sushi on a kaiten...

Microsoft

2008-06-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a wild ride, Bill. :) Otsukaresama~

the Getty

2008-06-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

3 years living in southern California, and i finally made it out to see the Getty Center in LA last weekend. it's beautiful! a bird's eye view of LA in every direction from the top of one of the loveliest constructions in the city. i was inspired.

pizzilla!

2008-06-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

in case you were starting to worry about my blog content going down the gutter, i made sure to photograph my latest favorite dish for the lazy. i love pizza, it's so fast and easy to make, but making dough and waiting for it to rise doesn't work out so well when i get a sudden craving for it. sure, i could prepare dough way in advance and freeze it or save it in the fridge, but then that may very well have balked the advent of... dah dah dahdahhh!! pizzilla! otherwise known as tortilla pizza! mmm. tortilla and pizza goodness all rolled into one. flawless.

and just so you know, i just made up the name right now, so you may not want to go around asking your friends if they've tried pizzilla just yet. but maybe one day, my friends, maybe one day! (i just googled it, and all this other fonkay stuff comes up. word.)

what you do is take 2 flour tortillas (2 for thickness), spread on a little tomato sauce, sprinkle on some onion and garlic powder if you like that stuff (i love it!), then throw on whatever goodies you like! in this one, i sliced some tomatoes, crimini mushrooms, arugula, and 3 kinds of cheese: gruyere, sharp cheddar, and asiago. top that off with a light sprinkling of oregano, and voila! c'est pizzilla! just kidding. you have to bake it first.

luckily, this little gem of the lazy can be cooked in a toaster oven! set it to 350, pop it in until the cheese melts and the tomatoes look cooked- the edges where the skin is will be wrinkly like the lips of an aged smoker. delectable thoughts, que no? and then switch it to broil for a few minutes to give the top layer of cheese a nice kind of crispness to it, and maybe a little beautiful brown color. be careful putting it in and taking it out since even once it's done, the tortilla won't be stiff like a regular pizza pie.

so here is my pizzilla. it was totally tasty!! give it a whirl!

HB Belly 'n' Bazoombas

2008-06-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

I went to a belly dancing show last week in Huntington Beach at the Pelican Isle. It was a pretty interesting show, with a menu that listed anything you could possibly imagine ordering at any given restaurant at any given time. I suspect from the food I had ordered, that the chef had once worked on a ship. I'll leave the ambiguity of that statement up to your imagination. :) Given that I once dated my very own Bulgarian babe who had abs that could roll like ocean waves, and had met several women throughout the 7 seas who know their way around a hip scarf or two, I can't say the show was the most authentic of performances I'd seen, but it was great to see the tradition so passionately reinvented in the western world. I wonder only now, if I've ever seen a belly dancer without ginormous bazoombas.

Or a man who didn't totally dig them.

if you don't build it, they will still come

2008-05-26T16:07:00.001-07:00

and in turn, it appears that if i don't take photos for long enough, they too will still eventually come to me.

lately i've been hearing from various people that gmail has been experiencing a few glitches in the way of e-mail addresses overlapping, and messages intended for one person instead reaching another with a similar address- for example, random.photos@gmail.com vs. randomphotos@gmail.com. so this happened to me today, and i have become the recipient of a plethora of flirty photos from what looks to have been an interesting girls' night out. here are a couple of photos of my e-mail twin.

simplicity

2008-05-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

i seem to have temporarily abandoned my intended combination of arts. it isn't that i haven't been cooking... it's more like the food turns out so well that i eat it before i remember to pull out the camera. delicious new couscous recipe, ropa vieja, sopa azteca, yucca con arroz y frijoles... the list goes on and on. but i felt it was a loss to not write at all simply because there was no visual media to go along with it. in addition, i was getting tired of seeing the cornbread nipplets, delicious though they were.

today was my first day at the new job. i've been excited and anxious about all the newness going on recently, but by the end of the day, something clicked, and things felt right and good. so although the weather today was gloomy and chilly, i felt happy and tickled by the time i got home and so tonight i post my happy pigeon man photo, quite possibly the gentlest soul in Marina del Rey.

muffin bits

2008-03-07T18:25:00.000-08:00

Behold, the misguided results of my first attempt at making cornbread from scratch. Perhaps a little too much baking powder and too little space in the mini muffin tins caused the innocent batter to roam down toward the red light district. I present to you my unintentionally formed, cornbread nipples.

prepubescent:

maturing:

fully titillated:

Taste-wise they were pretty good. a bit dry, but I think this might have been because they were in such small muffin tins. A larger baking dish might have produced a more manly chested, moister bread.

l'amour

2008-02-14T23:14:00.000-08:00

will you be my snowheart?

Flat + Bread ≠ Naan.

2008-01-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

I've been playing around with baking flat breads since my renewed cravings for Indian food led me to explore the wonderful world of 'naan'. I have the bread part down, and I have the flat part down. How they make it so soft and pliable though... this is still a mystery to me despite dear Manjula's teachings.

She makes it look so simple... and really, making simple bread isn't hard at all, but it just doesn't quite make it to the naan stage. ::crinkles nose:: I even have a stone tile in my oven so that the heat bakes the dough evenly. Instead of naan though, it just bakes itself into... regular bread, no matter how I mold it. (nyuk nyuk!) It still turns out delicious, and goes great with spaghetti sauce, Nutella, plain, or with any other spread, but the result was unintended, and thus a 'naan' factor.

So before fully losing myself in ridiculous bread puns, I took a little break from the naan attempts, and decided to experiment a bit with some cheesy types of bread. My favorite so far is this lovely little bun, stuffed and topped with Gruyère. About 10 minutes in the oven, and it's a cheesylicious masterpiece.

Incidentally, it's hard to find a dish that will hold a bun just right for display... a basket might have been more suitable, and the white background to deal with the flash... well, I used a white plastic cutting board instead of something a little more reflective. I might have to step it up a little perhaps. I'm also having difficulties photographing my food before eating it. Admittedly, I ate about three of these before I decided to photograph this lovely nugget. Melted cheese just makes everything so groovy... ::swoon::

Warner Springs Ranch

2008-01-14T20:11:00.000-08:00

I've been somewhat out of commission lately, but hopefully my body is on the mend and my culinary enthusiasm will be back to what it was prior to my subjection to the American health care system, a.k.a. hell. In the meantime, I spent the weekend here:

It's a little known hot springs location somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a few miles off the 76 and just off the 79 in southern California. While it's close to the edge of some gorgeous desert canyons, it's also close enough to some fertile mountains where fruity deliciousness abounds! Fruit or veggie, the argument doesn't linger for very long, as everything out here is turned into jam.

Waters that bubble up boiling from the earth form these stinky yet beautifully colored little springs, which are then channeled into a pampered human containment field. It's a strange sensation dipping into an entire swimming pool full of steaming water in the middle of a balmy California winter after having sat in what much resembles the upper photographs while having snow fall down around my shoulders.

Eventually we took a little drive out to the desert to see what all the bikers were revving their engines at...

And found Fort's Point...

Which overlooks...

Ever inspired by natural beauty, my mother displays a rarely seen expression of unbridled enthusiasm, as well as an uncanny likeness to the ever so dear, Kim Jong Il.

Eggs Benedict

2008-01-04T23:28:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was inspired by a plethora of remembrances, and an aching for some culinary creativity. Perhaps some of the aching was coming from my belly. Surely 'Eggs Benedict' isn't the pinnacle of creative dishes, but I adore them, and have never attempted to prepare them until today. Ever daunted by that mysterious, magical Hollandaise sauce, I contented myself with breakfasting over someone else's tender creations... until today! I am no longer dependent upon the kindness of Sunday brunches. Today, I mastered the art of this dish, and with great pride, I present you with the first of many culinary masterpieces to come.