Saturday, February 07, 2009
We went to a new flighty restaurant today, and it was good! It's a Greek place, Taso's Euro-Café, in Norwood, MA. The gyros were fantastic. And even though it wasn't Greek, so was the cheesecake. It was a huge tease, they had about ten thousand different incredibly delicious looking desserts in a case. We shared a horiatiki salad and Dean got spanakopita, both of which were gigantic, so we brought about half home. Norwood airport was really nice, too!
Posted at 9:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We had a tailwind on the way there, so it only took half an hour, but on the way back there was a huge headwind (about 30-40 knots). Dean did another slow flight experiment and got our groundspeed down to nothing, then to negative 8 knots. The stall alarm was buzzing and buzzing but we never actually stalled. I was watching out the window with stuff on the ground as a reference, and could actually SEE us going backward!! It was cool.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!
Posted at 9:39:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
"Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas seem like garter snakes. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip.... At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips."
My Gs told me about this on the phone (they said it was so huge it wouldn't fit through a door), so I looked it up online. Since it's a fossil, I wasn't expecting a snake picture, and when this page loaded and I and saw the artist's rendering, I instantly got all scared, jumped a mile, and ran out of the room!!!!!!!
I made a new video last night! It's of the Keferstein's sea cucumber I found under some rocks on our dive at Pebble Beach on March 20th (I wrote about the experience on ALB at the time). The footage was a lot better quality than I remembered it being! Keferstein's cukes are sooooooooo weird & cool, they're unreal-seeming. I like how, partway through, I'm shaking my head in disbelief. I remember that.
Posted at 2:23:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, February 06, 2009
I took two more photos of my pincushion star, just because I'm so fond of it. Both of these are in natural daylight, so the colors are nice and accurate. Here's the bottom (so you can see its mouth and where the tube feet would come out on a real star), and another one of the top. I really like how its pattern spirals out.
Posted at 4:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 12:49:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I made something else silly with the felted wool sweaters! Another experiment. I didn't know it was going to be a pin cushion until I'd finished it, and then suddenly it was obvious.
I put all my pins in, and threw away my tomato! (!!)
It's stuffed with scraps of the same pink I used for the bottom, and is kind of Frankensteiny looking, but I love it. (It's great how one of the legs turned out stubby, like it's growing it back, ha! That was not intentional.) This little guy was the pattern (literally... I printed out a picture and traced it, then added seam allowances). That former Fair Isle sweater turned out so echinoderm purple looking, I just had to try a starfish with it. It loves being stuck with pins! Echinoderm = "spiny skinned"! And I put my needles in the center, because I could never find them on my tomato.
It has a mouth in the center of the underside, just like a real starfish, too. :-) Also just like a real starfish, the shape feels really nice to hold in your hand. Nicer before I put the pins in, though.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Guess what cold pickled hog's maw tastes like??? Lamb's tongue! I bet it would make an excellent horseradish sandwich!
Posted at 12:08:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I decided I love Andy.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Posted at 6:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Here's what I ate on Saturday: pickled hog's maw in wine sauce. Doesn't it look great? (It smelled really good.) I had no idea what it actually was when I ordered it, but then the waiter warned me that it was tripe, and I said, "Oh good!" It was a Chinese New Year special at China Pan, and Saturday was the last day. After I ate it, I told the waiter, "I really liked the tripe! I'm glad I got to try that." He said, "I'm surprised. Not too many... Americans like that." Ha haha. Well, the funniest part was the way he said it. He seemed quite impressed.
The inside had these weird squishy moist/gelatinous sections that were pretty interesting (you can sort of see them in the picture), and the outside texture was boingy and bite-y, kind of like a gizzard. I've had tripe before, but not that kind. (I think only ox/cow, not pig). Anyway, how could I resist ordering something called "pickled hog's maw"??
It was 50° out today! Saturday it was about 20°, and tomorrow it's supposed to snow (again).
I bought fifty-billion containers of True Yogurt at Whole Foods. (Okay, only 10, really.) I really really like the Glastonbury Whole Foods. I'm tired today, though.
I added a shortcut to my Weird Foods I've Eaten list on my desktop so I'll remember to keep it up to date, and of course I had to customize the icon. (I customize everything!) It's a picture of two slices of toast. I think this is very, very funny.
We each had another Miracle Fruit last night, and tried the Guinness again, since I think I got the wrong type of Guinness last time (draft instead of extra stout), but it still didn't taste anything like a chocolate milkshake. (It barely effected it at all.) Miracle Fruit really does enhance the taste of pizza, though! But I think the fruit are starting to lose their potency already (in accordance with the accompanying literature, which said they only stay useful frozen for about a month), because the change when eating a Meyer lemon wasn't as extreme as last time. Such fleeting powers! Miracle Fruit is cool, though.
Posted at 12:31:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
