Curry + Eggs = Delicious

Alicia has been my primary supply of Indian cookbooks, both at the holidays and through the joy that is the free book room at her office. I have a couple of “easy” Indian cookbooks that she has picked up over the past few years, but one in particular I hadn’t used because it required weights rather than my usual measuring cups for the recipes. Enter the kitchen scale. Although it was initially intended only for weighing yarn (to determine more exactly how much I was using for my various projects), it has come in quite handy in the kitchen. My most recent use of the scale was to weigh ingredients for a really delicious chickpea and spinach curry. The most exciting part of the dish, however, was poaching eggs in the finished curry. It had never occurred to me to poach eggs in anything other than water, but this recipe looked so delicious I had to try it. I made a few changes (to accommodate the volume of chickpeas I had, the kind of tomatoes, and the greens available at the farmers market), and it was quite delicious. The timing was also perfect for a celebration of local food: my eggs were from a local farm and were really unlikely to have salmonella, unlike many in stores across the country this past week. I felt pretty confident eating them with delicious runny yolks, and would encourage you to find delicious local eggs and celebrate with me that they were not recalled!
Chickpea and Spinach Curry with Soft Eggs

Adapted from Easy Indian in Minutes

1 – 1 1/2 cups dried chickpeas or 1-2 cans of chickpeas
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
3 large cloves garlic
14 oz canned tomatoes
2 rounded teaspoons tamarind paste
2/3 cup hot water
2 tablespoons peanut oil
4 tablespoons butter or substitute
1 teaspoon ground tumeric
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
2-3 bunches fresh spinach or other dark leafy green (I used tatsoi, an Asian spinach one of my favorite farmer's market stands recommended)
1 egg per serving
fresh cilantro for garnish

Cook the chickpeas until they are soft, or open the can, and then drain them. Grind the cumin and coriander as finely as you like (or use ground spices, though you may want to increase the amounts slightly). Peel the garlic and chop. Combine the tamarind paste and hot water and stir to mix. Put the oil and butter in a large skillet or pot over moderate heat. Stir in the tumeric, cumin, and coriander until fragrant. Add the garlic and tomatoes (don’t drain them), the tamarind water, mustard seeds, cayenne pepper and a little salt. Add the cooked chickpeas, cover the dish and cook about 15 minutes, stirring periodically.

Meanwhile, wash the spinach and then add the whole leaves to the pot. Cover again and continue cooking until the leaves are wilted (1-2 minutes). Remove the lid and if the mixture is slightly liquid, let it bubble for a few minutes until it is fairly thick.

Lower the heat and make a depression in the curry for each of the eggs. Break the eggs carefully into the depressions. Cover again and cook for 2-6 minutes, until the eggs are just set. They should still be runny in the center (unless they are contaminated with salmonella, in which case you should cook them through, or skip them altogether as the curry is still delicious). Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Vacation!

Today was my first real day back from my much needed end-of-summer vacation. Technically I arrived home last Thursday, but practically I needed a few days to catch up and also a few more days of relaxation before jumping into fall. Though I travelled a lot this summer, this was really the first trip where I got to relax. I saw the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the Air and Space Museum with Matt and Sonia in DC (see me with the Wright Brothers below), and enjoyed delicious food and wonderful company the whole weekend I was there. I must say, enjoying AMSA from the outside (having retired from the national leadership) is truly a treat.

From DC, my flight through JFK was really delayed so I was graciously (!) rerouted by Delta through Detroit to Burlington. Feeling not only I like I got a great deal on my ticket (since I ultimately didn’t just fly in a circle, I flew home in between, even if only for 45 minutes), but also like for the first time in my life Delta actually had a workable solution to a flight problem, I arrived in Burlington, VT pretty happy. I was made even happier by getting to see Ash who is always the hostest with the mostest. It helps that she tends to live in places where delicious foods are made… And that she works in places that allow me to “rent” [for free] awesome bikes that I will not be able to afford for many years… It was a fantastic trip (see Ash and I/Ben and Jerry enjoying ourselves at the factory tour), and I already miss the kitties (another thing Ash has going for her).

If anything was going to prepare me for the fall, this was it… Bring on the semester!

This [deadline] too shall pass…

I finally finished a draft of the final report for the grant project I’ve been working on all summer. I’d hoped to have it done yesterday, but didn’t quite make that deadline. As a result, this morning was a bit of the frenetic kind of writing that I hate. Even more than the frenzied pace of this mornings work, however, I dislike the vaguely anxious feelings it leaves me with for the rest of the day. Finishing something I’ve been either putting off or just working diligently on for a long time always makes me feel like there is something else I should be doing. This is why I had a defacto moratorium on talking to/engaging with people before I had read an entire work of fiction when I came home on breaks during college, and why I was horrible to be around during most of my first two years medical school (mostly because the moratorium should have continued, and didn’t). In an attempt to learn from these experiences, I’m planning to go on a long bike ride this evening and take a page from Walter’s playbook, who feels no qualms about barking at me to pet him if he does not feel sufficiently relaxed:

As an aside, I was interested in the origins of the proverb that gave the title to this post. I checked Wikipedia…

Babies!

If you’ve talked to me recently, you’ve probably heard about the profusion of babies in my life. None of them are mine, but all of them are connected to me in some way or another, sufficiently closely that I wish to knit something to welcome them into the world. There are classmates and colleagues, friends and family members, all having babies this year. As of last count there were 10 babies either already born this year (five) or scheduled to arrive in November or December (another five). This is a lot of babies! Luck for me, baby gifts are little…

Farmers Market Bounty

Now that I’m in town for longer than 5 days, I’m enjoying the farmers market.* It is the perfect time of year because lots of things are done growing and ready to be eaten. I froze a bunch of green beans and wax beans (because anything that is on sale if you buy a “bucket” has to be worth it), and have been enjoying the purple beans (which I refuse to freeze because they turn normal green when you blanch them, so I insist on eating them raw), as well as tomatoes and will soon enjoy some broccoli as well. I don't have time for a long post, but wanted to share some pretty vegetable pictures... (And a fruit picture... but it's less beautiful...)

(Also, a quick unsolicited pitch for Locavorious, which is the frozen CSA I’ve subscribed to. I never thought I would look forward to winter produce, but theirs is delicious! I will get to eat all kinds of farmers market goodies that I missed while I was out of town.)

*I would like to note that I did not put an apostrophe after “farmers” because the website for the Ann Arbor Farmers Market did not, but the Wikipedia entry for “Farmers’ Markets” did include one. If you have strong feelings about this, please comment. I couldn’t decide one way or the other…

400 miles…

The odometer on my bike clicked past 1600 a few weeks ago, and today I recorded my 400th mile for the year. (As an aside, does the odometer still “click” if it’s digital?) As someone who loves to record things, I am still adoring Bike Journal, where I can record the date, duration, distance, and terrain type of my rides. This is how I know I’ve ridden just over 400 miles. I am also at the same time humbled and pleased to be ranked 3948th out of 5962 riders on the site. It’s based purely on distance logged this year, and I like looking at the top riders to see where they’ve ridden, and how far. Like this rider who does leisurely day rides of 196 miles. So cool!

Breaks – the gifts that keep on giving

This is a post I conceived of a while back, and have been meaning to post for the better part of a month. It is a reminder to myself (and perhaps to you) that taking breaks is good for you. Not only does taking a break allow you to recharge and return to work fresh and motivated, the benefits of the break rarely end with that initial payoff. Whether it’s the cool clean sheets on the bed that were only possible because of a laundry and reading break in the late afternoon, a delicious snack made possible by taking a pause to make hummus, or even just a lasting feeling of accomplishment for reading a book that was not related to work/school, the good things that come from taking breaks are many. I am continually reminded of this when I cook with fresh basil. The plants that continue to thrive in my living room were sprouted during a particularly difficult spring semester a little over a year ago, and were transplanted into pots during my preliminary exams, at both points they provided a much necessary pause in otherwise hectic periods. And… as if that weren’t enough… they have been providing delicious fresh herbs for over a year!

Practice makes perfect

Or at least a little better…  As many of you know, I sat, um, toward the back of the cello section in the Life Sciences Orchestra last year.  In general I am really competitive (particularly with myself as I’ve matured, though privately often also with others).  However, the huge number of things I enjoy has meant that as my life becomes increasingly full I’ve had to settle for being pretty average at some of them (cooking, cycling, salsa dancing, to name a few).  Mostly this is fine with me.  As long as I’m doing well enough to enjoy what I’m doing, I’m happy, and in particular if I can continue to improve and compete with myself, I have learned to care little for how I do compared to others.  Orchestra has become a bit of a sore spot, however, as I haven’t been motivated to make practicing a priority for the past few years, and my technique has suffered greatly.  It has made orchestra less fun, which I didn’t realize until I started practicing last year and realized that it is notably more enjoyable to already know the rough spots in the music before rehearsal!  All this to say that I’m resolving to practice a bit more this summer.  Whether I sit further forward in the section is somewhat of a moot point (though I wouldn’t be sad to be able to see the conductor regularly), I just want to be better than I was last year. 

Life lesson here: Sometimes it’s hard to tell what it takes to be “good enough.”

Sleepy puppy...

I thought it was time for a gratuitous Walter photo...

August? Really?

I don’t think I have ever had a summer go this quickly. Or a year, for that matter. It seems like just yesterday I was marveling at the arrival of 2010, and here I am wondering how the first 7 months have gone by.

You’ll all be pleased to know (I’m sure) that I’m finally settling into the apartment, though I haven’t yet painted the walls I’d hoped to and I still have a few things left to pick up (notably an alarm clock). I’m also pleased to finally have a few uninterrupted weeks to work on the dissertation.

To help get through the unending heat of the summer here is a picture of the lovely Gellert Baths in Budapest – like swimming in a palace!

Budapest by rail… among other things…

I arrived in Budapest yesterday and have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the city. Though Ash recently posted on her blog that public transit may inspire fear (even as it also inspires excitement), but I actually find that public transit is one of the most fun and stress-free parts of my travels. Subway maps everywhere are the same: you find the dot with your station on it, you look at your map to find a station near your destination, and you get on, either counting the stops or watching the posted stations as you go. You always get where you expect to be, even if it takes a few tries and turns. As I sat down on the Budapest underground (one of the first ever, apparently), I felt a sense of calm that was an incredible relief after the craziness of Keleti Station.

Given this, you can imagine how excited I was when I read in my guidebook that the Buda Hills (northwest of Budapest, but still quite close) are best accessed by the most bizarre modes of transit possible? After visiting Castle Hill today, along with a Canadian hostel-mate and new friend, I explored the hills and also went to the Bartok museum, which was small but lovely. In the course of these things, I rode the following forms of transit:

• Tram: these electric-powered (I think) silent bus/trains are awesome, though they are terrifying as a pedestrian
• Cog-railway: not a silent mode of transit at all, and a bit bumpy, but through some really pretty neighborhoods out toward the hills
• Children’s Railway: a small-gauge 11km railway built by Pioneers (apparently Soviet scouts), it’s still run almost entirely by children aged 10-14
• Chairlift: back down part of the hill was a lovely ride with a view of Buda, the river, and Pest
• Bus: perhaps a more mundane mode of transit, but Budapest employs some rather old models that are entertaining (pictures to come)
• Metro: also classic cars on view here

Am looking forward to another fun day in Budapest, but also to a happy return home in a few days…

Bill Gates answered my question!

AIDS 2010 – the International AIDS Conference – is off to a great start.  I went to some satellite sessions (organized by groups other than the conference, but reviewed by the conference for relevance) yesterday before the opening, and attended sessions today from 8:30AM-8:30PM with only a brief dinner break, and I’m still ready to start at 7AM tomorrow…  Famous people I have seen speak:

• Deputy President of South Africa, Kgalema Molanthe
• Former US President, Bill Clinton
• Head of his own foundation, Bill Gates

Before Bill Gates spoke they were handing out note cards (fancy conference printed note cards, but basically note cards) for questions.  I didn’t yet know what he would say in his talk, but thought it would be interesting to hear him talk about what parts of the AIDS epidemic can be addressed with technology, and at what point we would run into the problem of brain drain and workforce issues.  After he spoke, the moderator took up a stack of cards, but only got to 3-4 of them.  Mine was one of them!  I was a little disappointed because he didn’t really talk about those issues directly in his talk, and his answer wasn’t amazing, but it was still pretty cool. 

I will try to post some pictures soon, but am also trying to sleep!

Salzburg

To prove that I am alive and well, I am posting this slightly fuzzy picture of me at Festung Hohensalzburg. The fuzziness is a result of the intense humidity (and my hair’s reaction to it) and also my failure to realize that if I autofocused my camera, and then put it on the tripod and used the remote to click the shutter, the focus would not adjust to my face.

Salzburg has been all that Ruti promised; a lovely little town that you can see most of in about a day. There are clearly things further afield that I haven’t seen, but I’m ready to be on my way this afternoon.

Yesterday I walked around the old town and saw Mozart’s birthplace, as well as a bunch of churches and other lovely buildings. On my way home, I stumbled onto a performance of traditional Austrian dancing in Mirabell Gardens – where part of the Sound of Music was filmed. It struck me as a combination of Scottish country dancing with Rueda Salsa. It’s nothing short of incredible that all of these partner-changing, circular dances spread across the globe.

I got up early this morning (to avoid the life-sucking heat) and went over to the Mirabell Gardens again. I walked around and took some photos, and enjoyed the cool weather. From there it was still a bit early to head up to the fortress (Festung Hohensalzburg), so I meandered through the old city. In my walking, I found some stairs that appeared to go straight up the cliff, so I climbed, not certain where I was going. It turned out I was scaling Monchsberg, one of the hills in Salzburg, and unwittingly heading up the hill toward the fortress. I kept walking and although I missed the funicular ride up the hill, I did get to see some pretty neighborhoods in Salzburg. The fortress was notable for it’s elaborate state rooms and lovely collection of torture implements.

On my way down the hill I stopped at Nonnburg Abbey, another setting for the Sound of Music. As far as I could tell, the cloisters are still cloisters so visitors can’t go in, but I did go in and see the church.

Finally, I stopped and had lunch at Spicey Spices, a vegan Indian restaurant I noticed yesterday and which was also recommended by the Lonely Planet folks. It was lovely and delicious, and now I’m back at the hostel checking e-mail, etc. I’m about to catch the train back to Vienna, where I will check into my hostel and perhaps take a nap (still a bit jetlagged) and then finalize my plan of attack for the conference and Vienna.

Travel Day

Soon I will post a photo of my bag carefully arranged to avoid counting my poster tube as an extra bag…

My flight from DTW was fairly uneventful; I managed to sleep a reasonable amount and the woman I was sitting next to was lovely. She was on her way to Scotland after winning a free tour by submitting to her tour company a picture of herself and fellow tourists (in the more literal sense here) having fun in Egypt last year. Needless to say I was envious of her previous trip to Egypt and assured her that Scotland would also be beautiful, though there will clearly be fewer mummies, which I view as a bit of a drawback. I started watching “Un profete” – a French film about a Muslim man in a French prison and had to turn it off. It was good, but disturbing, and I long ago decided that disturbing films are not good plane fare. Instead, I watched “Pirate Radio,” which I enjoyed a great deal and which was not disturbing at all.

Though airplane food is usually unremarkable, I had a rather strange meal last night that begs description, if only to convey the sheer volume of carbs that were involved. As usual, I requested a vegetarian meal when I booked my ticket (having learned the hard way that there are rarely extras on the plane), but I think (if I recall correctly) that I requested an “Asian Vegetarian” meal, though I didn’t really know what that was. Turns out it’s fairly bland Indian food. It wasn’t particularly tasty but wasn’t bad, but included the following items:

• dinner roll (just like everyone else)
• “naan”
• rice (filling 2/3 of the main portion)

Upon my arrival in Amsterdam I had about an hour before my flight left for Vienna. Silly me assumed that this would be easy and that I would have plenty of time. I had delusions of finding a bank machine and getting some cash so that when I got to Vienna I would be ready to go. Then I encountered the most disorganized customs line I have ever seen. This includes all of my travel, anywhere. It was very calm, but completely disorganized and took what seemed like an eternity. Ultimately I made it through with no problems, and also through security again, and arrived at my gate about 5 minutes before we boarded.

The flight to Vienna was short (and I had a bizarre breakfast of half of a cheese sandwich – not unexpected – and half of an egg salad sandwich – a little unexpected). I managed to get a bus ticket into the city and also some cash, and I was on my way. A cultural observation: nothing here is air conditioned and everyone is sweaty…

Now I’m riding the train to Salzburg (though there is no internet here so this will obviously be posted later) and taking in the lovely Austrian countryside.

Gratuitous Walter photo!

This is from last week when it was so hot. No modesty here…

Yotel Schiphol

Sometimes you make a mistake and don’t realize it until sometime later. If you are lucky, you realize it while it is still potentially funny rather than tragic. This is what happened to me last night…

When I booked my flight for Vienna and the International AIDS Conference, I was really excited to find a flight that didn’t leave Vienna until 8:30PM on my departure date. I thought that would give me a delightful amount of extra time to get back from Budapest and to the airport, and maybe even enough time to do something fun and interesting on that last day. Now, I am usually quite careful when booking flights. I know I checked the departure times, and while I saw that I arrived a day after I left, I considered this par for the course since I wasn’t leaving until 8:30PM. As I was mailing out my itinerary last night, however, I saw that my flight arrives in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 10:30PM, and departs for Detroit Metro at 8:30AM. This is not the kind of layover I thought I was booking. I don’t know how I missed it, and can only chalk it up to the overall stress and craziness of this summer. Thankfully, however, I realized this while it was still ridiculously funny followed by a frantic search for lodging rather than a most unpleasant shock followed by a night at the gate. After a thorough search of the Schiphol website, I discovered this: Yotel Schiphol.

Although it is what you might generously call a “budget” hotel, it offers a surprising number of amenities, including free wireless internet. When I clicked looked around to figure out why the pictures looked nice and the pricetag also looked reasonable, I discovered that Yotel Schiphol is a “design hotel,” and that the “rooms” could best be described as “pods on a spaceship” or “weird isolation cabins.”

This did not deter me from booking a room however, as it contains the only amenities I need for my brief stay in Amsterdam: a bed, free wi-fi, a shower, and easy access to the terminal.

If things are going to be crazy enough that I make uncharacteristically ridiculous mistakes, I can only hope that all of them can be fixed by such uncharacteristically ridiculous solutions.

I did it!

Fear not, I made it alive through the ride yesterday. The last 20 miles were not what I’d hoped, and the muscle pain last night was pretty much incapacitating, but I’m still glad I did it. I have made a note for next year to do a better job of training, and to stop and stretch more before anything hurts on the route…

We had originally intended to start riding at 7am, but couldn’t drop Walter off at doggie daycare until 7am, so we actually got started closer to 8am. I knew things were going our way though, when we got up and realized that the ratio of water to more breathable less sticky things in the air had dropped incredibly through the night, leaving us with a relatively cool and shady day to ride, free of rain, heat indices in the millions, and other meteorological cycling nightmares.

I started out feeling really good. My legs hadn’t felt quite like themselves since the move (when I lifted more things that anyone should over the course of a week), but they were ready to ride yesterday. I was pretty adamant about sticking to a 13-14 mph pace which I knew I could sustain rather than getting excited and racing through the first 20 miles only to limp along for the last 40. We stopped at our first rest stop for a bathroom break and water/snacks at 13.3 miles and I felt great. We packed some bananas to take use through the next 25 miles before lunch, and went on our way.

I was a little tired by the time we got to lunch and was definitely ready to eat! We were 38.8 miles in and I still felt pretty good.

We had some delicious sandwiches and listened to one of the worst mixes of classic jazz covers, bluesy folk disasters, and other bad things while we ate. The group was well-meaning, and in general I try not to say bad things about other people on my blog, but we were to the point of speculating that they were there to move people out of the lunch site more quickly. In any case, we ate, stretched a bit (not enough, as I would later realize), and went along our merry way.

I realized I hadn’t stretched enough (or that something was more drastically wrong) when I had a weird pain in my right leg. I later figured out that it was a muscle on the inside of my leg that was clearly tight and pulling my knee in an odd direction, but it look me long enough to figure that out that I think I irritated/injured my knee a little bit, and it made riding a little uncomfortable. At that point about 20 miles left and I thought I could push through it. I did, with frequent breaks, but I was exhausted and sore when we got back. We made it in almost exactly 5 hours, maintaining a pretty constant pace throughout the whole ride.

Fast forward a few hours and no amount of cold water, frozen vegetable ice packs, icy hot, and ibuprofen could touch the pain. But sleeping (plus all of the things mentioned above) has improved it a great deal, so I can walk today, though strong use of my quads seems inadvisable… (As an aside, Alicia is fine, which I attribute to her lighter bicycle and inherent cycling abilities... She may also be a robot...)

At record speed…

And now, a brief update on the bicycling that has (or has not) been going on around here:

My training schedule was going brilliantly through June. I was getting faster, going farther, and in general having a great time. I hit my highest speed ever going down Glazier Way, and hit 1500 miles on my bike odometer.

Then the move happened, and a friend’s wedding, and the most ridiculously hot weather ever, and suddenly it’s been two weeks since I did a really long ride. In fact, I never made it to the 35-45 mile training rides I had planned, which means that 77 miles tomorrow sounds like a painful and slow plan. Instead, I think we will be riding the 64 mile route, which will still be the longest I’ve ever ridden, a great deal of fun, and a stepping stone toward longer rides later in the summer and fall.

A ridiculous rock in a storm of boxes

Moving is a little crazy, and just a few days ago my apartment looked overwhelmingly filled with boxes:

Zooming in a bit, however, reveals the one thing that has been keeping me from going nuts:

As a friend kindly reminded me, if the dog is managing to keep it all together and not pee all over stuff, you can do it too. (I am paraphrasing, and when she said it it didn’t sound quite so much like I was trying not to pee on things myself…) Thankfully, Alicia helped me unpack a bunch of boxes yesterday and now it all looks much better. More pictures to come.

Summer’s Here

**Apologies again for the posting delays… I moved this week and will be back on a more regular schedule soon!**

The weather is still a little crazy, and I’m increasingly convinced that “global weirding” is a more appropriate term than “global warming,” but summer has definitely arrived in Ann Arbor. I took some pictures with my phone while I was out on a bike ride a week or so ago (because my camera is too big and too expensive to make it worth loading on my bike somehow), and even with the inferior image quality, they are worth at least 500 words…

It's amazing how little distance you have to travel in Ann Arbor to be out in the country!