Look! Up in the Sky!

The Hard Way

2011-03-07T18:48:00.000-08:00

I've been contemplating this aspect of kitchen culture for a while. I really liked what Eric Ripert called it when I heard his NPR interview. He called it "the Hard Way." The Hard Way is where you have one tough-assed mother leading the kitchen. He screams as a way of motivating action as service fast approaches. This type of kitchen is not uncommon. It's probably the rule rather than the exception. Eric Ripert used to run his kitchen the Hard Way, but he says he has changed. I don't mind the Hard Way. I actually appreciate its usefulness as a unifying force - whether it be out of fear or hatred or both, the team pulls together.

In our breakfast class, there is the one Chef Instructor who is notorious for her yelling. And frankly I'm proud that it's a woman. I have never felt so happy to be a part of a team in school as I was in her class because everybody was so freakin' scared of her that they pulled together. Like Chef Ludo, she possesses the yin and yang of temper and charm that inspire people to want to be better. She is teaching her class in the Hard Way tradition so people shouldn't be surprised when they go out into the real world.

This semester, we are not learning the Hard Way, and frankly I miss it. I would like to see how a kitchen - like Eric Ripert's - might work without going the Hard Way. But what I'm finding right now is that without having a screaming chef to unify the team, each student is out for him or herself and I'm getting REALLY REALLY angry a lot of the time. Maybe my irrational anger comes from my education in the professional kitchen as the most recent of a long line of "Hard Way" Frenchie chefs. Maybe I know that in the real world, you have to work as a team to get through service. Maybe I just have anger issues.

LudoBites Episode 6.0: A New Hope

2010-10-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

Call me crazy, call me an adrenaline junkie, but I signed up for another round of internship at LudoBites 6.0 while still going to culinary school in the morning (and some evenings). I missed the intensity of service, the speed of work. Though school is nice - I get to screw up product in practice without someone yelling at me - I don't quite like feeling I'm the fastest person (apart from the instructors) in the kitchen. I feel like the lackadaisical attitude carries over and dulls my skills (which already aren't even close to where I want to be when I'm in a professional kitchen).

It was nice to be back in the kitchen with the team the first week. I'm only there part time, because of my evening classes, but I came in to help out on one day of prep just to familiarize myself with the kitchen at Max in Sherman Oaks. It was smaller than Gram and Papa's, but at least we're not sharing it with someone else. This makes organizing your product a little easier in the walk-in.

Service was a little hectic at first - opening night, hit the ground running. The tickets weren't printing where they should go, so the expediter had to call them out. This was my first experience with this formal call-and-response. I kind of loved it. I smiled every time the expediter called out "runner-rrrr!" when food was ready to go out. It reminded me of being at a craps table in Vegas.

On the second night, the guys all got into a rhythm - especially when "foie gras" was called out. Without naming names, let's just say that pronouncing "foie gras" with a slight Korean accent is amusing in itself. Add to it an American imitating a Korean saying "foie gras," then a part Native-American/Mexican imitating an American imitating a Korean, then a Frenchman correcting an American on his imitation of a Korean saying "foie gras" and you really have a special kind of melting pot hijinks.

It was a good thing so much foie gras was being ordered because everybody got to practice their pronunciation a lot that night.

Speaking of practice...

Quenelles.

These practice quenelles were from the last round of LudoBites when I was on the station with the pork belly confit and mustard ice cream. As you can see, the ones in the back are kind of sad. The ones in the front aren't bad.

I'm going to have to practice some more because there's a mango sorbet on the carrot cake plate at my station. Chef has already poked at me about not knowing how to do a quenelle.

So in the interest of possibly funding some of my practice this weekend, here's a plug for the ice cream I used at home. I bought it because it was the cheapest, but when I looked at the ingredients, I was pretty surprised that there were no crazy additives in it. Creamy and delicious. Thank you, store brand premium ice cream!

LudoBites 6.0: A New Hope (for quenelles).

LudoBites leftovers

2010-09-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning feeling slightly depressed because I knew I didn't have the intense experience of LudoBites ahead of me in the week. So I slept most of the day away out of exhaustion and slight depression.

Luckily, I could ease my withdrawal with a simple chirashi I made from some of the raw tuna left over from the final night. The tuna is on the hot foie gras with dynamite (DY-NO-MITE!) sauce. Picture compliments of blogger:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/weezermonkey/4928032499/

I didn't have lychee to balance the rich tuna, so I grabbed a yellow oxheart tomato I'd plucked from my farm visit last weekend. Blanched, shocked, peeled, diced.

I really wanted a viola flower to top it.

Oh well, the husband just had to make do with a flowerless LudoBites leftover.

LudoBites 5.0: Last Night

2010-09-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the final night of LudoBites 5.0 and I've learned so much I haven't had the chance to list them all these last few weeks because the days have gone by in a blur - a tired blur. This week, I had class in the morning and LudoBites at night. Operating on 4 hours of sleep a night hit me around 10pm every night just as service started slowing down. My brain was in an opium fog, and words came out of my mouth, but just not in an order that made coherent sentences.

Last night, I was stationed in the back where I learned a new dish - prawn cinnamon appetizer - I would have snuck a picture, but I felt the obligation to send the dish quickly while it was still hot. Just one of the many things I've learned.

Actually, I find myself subconsciously doing things because of LudoBites. I took away some left-over potato mousseline last night and had some time this morning to make my ghetto version of the LudoBites poached egg dish (covered with the potato). Some ordinary sausage found its way into a saute pan, then my hands started plating it in a straight line. I found peach that was rotting on one side, so I cut the peach in half and cooked the good half. All of a sudden, I looked down and realized I really wanted to put a flower on the potato mousseline. I wished I had some micro-marigolds, but a cucumber bud was the only thing in my garden. I decided chive and cilantro flowers, being white, would not look right with the white potato.

So this is what happens to someone who spends 5 nights out of the week trying to make things look pretty. Breakfast suddenly becomes more than just eggs and sausage.

Week 4: What Hurts

2010-08-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Below, I have shared some photos of blistered burns from Week 3. Chef saw my arms and said, "Now you look like a real cook!"

Oui, Chef. Thank you, Chef.

I am learning which parts my hands and arms actually contain sensitive nerves. That fat part of my hand? Not so much. The blister fascinated me in its perfect bulbous beauty, but didn't hurt at all. The burns on my arms itched more than they hurt.

The injuries that hurt are the little scrapes on my fingertips that don't make for dramatic pictures. They are scrapes like the one Friday night from the special yuzu grater - scrapes that are small like paper cuts at the tips of your fingers. Then add the squeezing of a lime, and you have the sharp biting pain of a thousand tiny needles stabbing into a millimeter area.

Week 4: Don't Forget your Veg!

2010-08-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

The week started with A LOT of prep to do. But when don't we have a lot of prep to do? Chef always says that the most difficult thing to prepare are vegetables. People don't realize the amount of labor that goes into them - the cleaning, the cutting, the preparation. The protein on the plate looks sexy to people; the veg is the workhorse.

Insert usual bitching about the delicious pork belly dish here. As an illustration of this concept, I present my favorite (read sarcasm) dish to plate at LudoBites. Pictures can be found at this foodie blog. Oooh, pork belly. Such glistening goodness. Sexaaay. But what compliments all this fat and savory? Why an artfully and generously placed tumble of vegetables dressed with a tasty vinaigrette! Quick! Brush aside all that healthy stuff and get back to the money shot. Ooooh. Fatty belly yeah...

Take note, man, of the number of veg you just pushed aside to get to that pork belly:

fingerling potato
green papaya
jicama
savoy cabbage
pickled red onion
thai basil leaves
fried shallots
fried lotus root

How many ingredients is that? Count it. EIGHT. Eight veg! most of which are julienned in a mandoline at the risk of bodily injury. And four of those ingredients are processed by boiling, frying, or pickling - an extra step!

I went to a shabu shabu place the other day for lunch. As my raw beef was sitting there all bright and red and beautiful, the waitress brought out my plate of vegetables and I felt myself overwhelmed with appreciation and sympathy for the man behind the curtain. I turned to my friend and said, "Some poor schmuck had to do all this!"

I am that poor schmuck. Please think of me the next time you forget to eat your vegetables.

Week 3: Thank you, may I have another!?

2010-08-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

So I have more wonderful photos of a recent burn that happened when I was lifting a heavy pot from the back burner over a giant pot on the front burner, but I don't have my camera with me. I've spent the weekend watching my grandmother while my parents are out of town. It's very quiet here, but it's stressful trying to keep her from scorching garlic in the sautee pan.

Also, I've realized that I never learned the Taiwanese word for "please." This is because growing up you were never asked to "please" do something, you were just told to do it. My grandmother just kept telling me to do things (put the pan here, put the vegetable in the fridge, get the bowl, etc.) and it was driving me crazy. I tried to ask her to use the "polite" words but wasn't able to communicate it.

But I'm okay with no "please" or "thank yous" in the kitchen. When Chef says something, you answer, "Yes, Chef! Oui, Chef!"

When I hear the ticket machine clicking away during service and the order is called, I answer, "Thank you!" And in my head, I'm thinking "Thank you, may I have another!?"

The professional kitchen is run like the military. Respect, hierarchy, chain of command. There's no time to question, just do it.

Not completely sure why this doesn't apply to my grandmother in the kitchen except that there is this complicated cultural component where you're supposed to be taking care of her, but she also wants to assert her independence and knowledge... knowledge you know is 50 years out of date.

I Dream of Shallots

2010-08-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

Week 2 of the internship at LudoBites: More shallots! More shallots! Every night Chef wants more fried shallots in the charcroute. Every night, I literally dreamt of shallots: slicing them on the mandoline, frying them, drowning in a sea of shallots. Every day, I played chicken with a mandoline trying to get the best yield from the little buggers I could. (My husband said there were too many f-bombs in my last post, so I'm trying to keep it clean.) Most of the time, I won, but it only takes one loss to the mandoline to totally screw with my day. I'm investing in Band-Aid stock.

My goal on Friday was to NOT hear "More shallots!" from Chef. Success! And the shallots that haunted my dreams were gone that evening.

So what did I learn this week? I learned that during service, communication and coordination is absolutely key. When you get slammed with order after order in no particular order (pork belly! bass! belly! foie gras! duck! duck! belly!), you have to absolutely be aware of what proteins are going down on the plancha and you have to know what dishes are on deck to be plated. Wednesday was a total clusterfuck and I got my ass handed to me. After a sit-down meeting about coordination and communication with Chef and the sous, I started getting a handle on the movements of service and by Friday, it was starting to become more natural.

I still suck, though. It's easier, however, to spot the efficient movements that Chef and the sous are using to plate the dishes. I'm trying to mimic as best I can.

Quenelle update: the two-handed quenelles of cucumber relish go down on the plate pretty easily now. But now there's a one-handed quenelle of soft mustard ice cream that goes on my favorite pork belly dish. I practiced at home this weekend, but I have about a 1% success rate. And even that one ice cream quenelle looked so much like crap that I couldn't be bothered to take a picture of it to post.

On the plus side, my body has started getting used to standing all day. My feet weren't in any pain at the end of the week. Also, Chef yells at us if we don't take a break between prep and service. He sits in the dining room in front of the staff meal and knows who has come to take a plate and who hasn't. "I will be very angry if you don't come eat now!"

Yes, Chef. I was just coming to eat right now, Chef!

None of us really wants to stop because we all want to make sure our stations are set up properly, but he's right. Making us sit down for at least 5 minutes before service - and preferably 15-20 minutes - makes a huge difference for the rest of the evening.

Next week, the Chef has promised a couple changes in the menu. Just as I was getting the hang of the old one! Oh well... what dreams may come...

From Foodie to Kitchen Bitch

2010-07-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

I am privileged to have an internship position with the infamous Ludo Lefebvre at LudoBites 5.0. I have finished week one of this run from July 21 - September 3, and I got my freakin' ass kicked.

Day One wasn't really a "Day." We came in for an orientation, toured the kitchen at Gram and Papa's, met some of the staff, and went over the menu on paper. About halfway through Chef's descriptions of the menu items, he had to go back to the kitchen to answer a question from his staff who was prepping hard for the next day. I took the opportunity to hold my head in my hand because my head was about to explode. There were so many unique components on each dish! Here are my notes:

Day Two was easy in retrospect. We were just in prep for opening day on Wednesday. My first task was to segment grapefruit and dice the peel for grapefruit jam. Easy. So why was I sweating like a pig? And I'm talkin' full-on rivulets running down my neck. I chock it up to nervousness. It's different when you're prepping food for paying customers who expect the best instead of making a cozy dinner for kind family and friends. Other prep involved the vadouvan naan and the creme patisserie for the caramel souffle.

Day Three, opening day, was marshmallows, graham crackers, cheese cupcakes, naan, and souffles. Things seemed to be going okay until I started falling behind. I screwed up the graham crackers, salvageable, but I lost time because I thought I could do the math in my head instead of writing doubled quantities down. The problem is, when you're rushed for time and you're reading a recipe, you don't always remember to do the math! So I have a new rule: ALWAYS DO THE MATH ON PAPER.

On service, I made two souffles fall - which basically set each order back 15 minutes. The aggravated sous taught me how to get the souffles out of the oven correctly and my third souffle came out of the oven without falling... even if it was a slow and nervous process. With relief, I sent it out and the rest of the souffles that evening were cake. Still felt like shit, though, for those two fallen souffles - which was essentially 30 minutes of delay.

It's not even worth describing my poor piping skills with the chocolate ganache and my inability to torch a marshmallow for the s'mores.

Here are my oven burned left arm and my torch-burned right elbow. Pretty sure my hand-modeling days are over.

Oven burns

Torch burn

Day 4 and 5 plating main courses. I love pork belly. I love it as bacon. I love it as quivering cubes of fat and meat in Asian preparations. I even love touching the raw skin that feels eerily human-like. But I fuckin' hate plating it at LudoBites. No question, the dish is fabulous. The pork belly has been brined and pressed and cut precisely by the sous. The raw charcroute is dressed with lime, fried shallots, fried lotus, and a Thai vinaigrette. Delicious. But there are a thousand components in that charcroute and Chef knows every single time I forget one component. This ain't rocket science and I feel like a dunce. I know I lose focus I have to work on that.

On top of it all, Day 5 we ran low on fried shallots and lotus root. Crash course on how to use the fryer during service. Burned the first batch. Lucky me. Did okay on the second batch. Will need to learn how to change out that oil because I think part of the issue was that it was used up and I definitely had it too hot.

Fuckin' quenelles. The foie dish has a quenelle of cucumber relish on the plate. I've never done a quenelle in my life. I've seen it demonstrated. I know what they look like. The cook in charge of me does them very well. I let her do it and I just watch. I practice on one plate. I get the nice quenelle shape in my spoons, but when I go to put it on the plate, I hesitate because I have no idea how to get it off the spoon and on to the plate without ruining it. Chef yells that I must practice all weekend long! I know I'm over-thinking it because when we're slammed and the cook in charge of me is running around doing other stuff, I HAVE to get those quenelles on the plate. Three of them, right in a row, no overthinking.

So I practiced this weekend. Yay:

Quenelles

Oh, and just a random shot of an injury from prep this week. Good thing I heal quickly.

Mandolin cut

So what did I learn this week?

I learned that standing 12 hours a day hurts your feet, ankles, and legs. On the plus side, the pain in my legs completely distracted me from the pain in my left hip that has been there for over a month.

I learned that you have to really really love preparing food in a restaurant to be a chef, sous, line cook, etc. because it's fuckin' hard work.

I learned that there is a weird line I've crossed from being a foodie to sweating in the back with the sharp implements and the fire. After the first couple of nights, I took a look at some of the foodie blogs to see what they were saying after they had their first meals at LudoBites 5.0. Mostly everything was well-received. It was strange reading these reviews. In the past, when I have read them, I've read them with the thought, "Woah. I want to eat THAT." Now, when I read them, I think, "Who the fuck are you to write so much about this?" And when there's a questionable review about a dish, I think, "Fuck you! You have no idea how hard people worked for that!"

I'm not sure on which side I'll eventually come down, foodie or kitchen bitch. I still unconsciously begin hopping with joy when I taste something really really good. And I'm not sure I'm young enough to do this hard work anymore. But when a friend of mine asked me if I would work another LudoBites after this, without hesitation, I answered, "Yes. If they will have me!"

Roasted Bone Marrow Powder

2010-06-28T10:56:00.001-07:00

When I blitzed all the bone marrow with tapioca maltodextrin, I thought it was nuts, but the result on hash browns was a keeper!

Ramps!

2010-05-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

Spicy garlicky leaf. Sweet stem/bulb.

Midnight Macaroons

2009-12-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it's the sugar rush from taste-testing, or if it's because I figured out how to use the self-clean cycle on my oven. A revelation! Next time I broil some eggplant, I hope I won't have to have the sheet pan ready to fan the smoke detector.

I couldn't sleep, so I decided I would try to make some macaroons. After my pathetic attempt this summer, I thought I'd try to do it again with the full experience of a baking class backing me.

This time, I did it!

Piped and ready to bake:

Dried out as much as possible, but I'm still going to sit it in a warm oven overnight:

Time to attempt the Bryan Voltaggio macaroon again. That's what inspired me and got me in trouble the first time.

Oatmeal philia

2009-11-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

I wrote a while ago about my Oatmeal phobia. My friend the ProFussor emailed me about oatmeal that would change my life.

He was right. I had been exposed only to the horrible instant rolled oats variety of oatmeal (cardboard with a hint o' ass). This morning I tried his preparation with steel cut oats toasted in butter before simmering. It's oatmeal with bite and teeth and not a hint o' ass or cardboard anywhere. I didn't need a fried egg to cover up the flavor because the oatmeal was nutty and flavorful.

Pate a choux

2009-10-20T12:51:00.001-07:00

Better known as the pastry dough that forms cream puffs and eclairs, I tried out a savory version with chives,sprinkled with gruyere, and stuffed with fenugreek mashed potatoes.

I've really learned a lot in my 8-week intro baking class. Prior to the class, I didn't think much about baking, but now I have a whole new appreciation for this art which creates such a variety of different products from a handful of standard ingredients.

Prior to this class, I also used to think I was a nice person, but after 8 weeks of dealing with classmates who had the mental capacity of a peanut, I realize I will probably go to hell because I have so little tolerance for idiots. I am chock full of horror, bitterness, and a little bit of shock. Raised in the Asian way, I believed if you worked hard enough, you'd learn. Work problems over and over and eventually, you'll know how to do calculus. Basically, I was taught nurture over nature. Now, I don't know. A lot of it is the luck of the genetic and socio-economic draw. There is a lot of nature involved. I find this very disturbing and contrary to the American way of thinking.

Maybe it's not so good to have this American ideal of achievement when so much of American society is stacked against the odds of having nurture overcome nature.

Bread

2009-08-24T07:58:00.001-07:00

New loaf, same aesthetics. For some reason, this loaf turned out drier than the last.

Dammit.

I suspect I baked it too long. The internal temp was upwards 205 Fahrenheit when I took it out of the oven.

Home-made Bread

2009-08-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

My first two attempts at a sandwich bread loaf in the last two weeks have tasted fine, but have looked unappealing - lopsided, too brown on top, too light on the bottom.

Today, I used a different "recipe" (from Michael Ruhlman's book RATIO) and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator so some lethargic yeast could lazily munch on some sugar in their slowed metabolic state. I also brushed on some egg wash halfway through the baking.

MUCH better looking and better tasting!

Cross-run

2009-08-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Now I'm just getting ridiculous. Crossing in a panic = running forward and back on the board like a chicken with its head cut off.

Do chickens surf?

Backward

2009-08-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Cross-stepping forward is getting slightly easier.

Backward is non-existant as I shuffle-hopped back to the tail only to lose it and have the board shoot out from under me.

Cross-step

2009-08-03T09:48:00.001-07:00

I did a few honest-to-goodness cross-steps this weekend instead of my usual sideways bunny hop.

Now I just have to learn how to do it at the right time instead of at the end of the wave when I just sink the nose into the water.

Things to note

2009-07-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

I stepped on a weight scale yesterday out of solidarity for our dog Otis who was having his annual check-up. Oof. Both the dog and I are heavier than last year.

This is why I decided to surf this morning.

I'm rusty and surfing without a leash at El Porto does not help my rusty-ness. Swam once and that was enough to make me really picky about my waves.

Stupidly took the wrong key with me when I locked my car, locking the car key inside. Thanks to the awesome surfer woman with AAA!

Longboarding

2009-07-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

Joel Tudor interview on longboarding and why it's not shortboarding

Watched the surfers on a major swell today at Topanga. Shortboarders bore me. The sexy ones were the three longboarders who were killing it with five toes over and powerful turns.

Surfed today

2009-07-10T17:19:00.001-07:00

That is all.

Oatmeal phobia

2009-04-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

I had this impression that plain oatmeal tastes like ass with a hint of cardboard. I don't know where I got this impression. I don't actually remember ever eating oatmeal, but maybe I was just suppressing a memory which lingers as just an impression.

So, being an adventurous sort of foodie, I decided to try oatmeal this morning. I am happy to report that I was wrong, it actually tastes more like cardboard with a hint of ass. I decided it would help to dress it up... salt (lots of it), butter, and a fried egg on top. I broke the yolk with my spoon and had myself some egg-flavored oatmeal. No cardboard or ass.

Now I feel healthy because I ate oatmeal.

I surf / I don't surf

2009-03-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

I think this is a lull.

My weekend commitment to "paddle no matter what" went by the wayside after about two weekends. One weekend had no surf, and I paddled. One weekend had some small fun surf and I had some small fun waves, and I paddled. This weekend was a swell and the yahoos were out. Close-outs did not look fun to paddle over or out of at home break and hunting down non-crowded points on the first Los Angeles weekend swell in two months did not sound like a fun way to spend the morning.

So I don't surf.

Creativity

2009-03-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

Lately, understanding comes just before I fall asleep. This is frustrating.

Last night, I thought I understood Molly Daniels old teachings about stories not being fiction until you have that extra 30%. Just had to get that down before I forgot.

Garlic roasted crab and seafood risotto

2009-02-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

Dungeness crab. My first time killing things with eyes. What guilt I had was washed away with dinner.

Risotto -- much better texture than my first attempt the other day, not mushy at all. Killed clams for this dish, but they don't have eyes, do they?

Mushy, but tasty risotto

2009-02-20T11:52:00.001-08:00

In my first attempt, I totally overcooked the risotto last night. It was fine... then it wasn't. I learned that the arborio likes to keep cooking even when you take it off the heat. Tasty, though.

Caramelized onions

2009-02-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

I made some caramelized onions for the first time yesterday. I was folding dumplings and shu-mai, and I parked myself at the kitchen counter so I could periodically stir the onions.

As the onions seemed to melt into a delicious reddish-brown goo, I wondered aloud to my husband whether it was done. He was pan-frying some sweet potato ravioli I learned from watching Ming Tsai.

"Smells good. I think it's done. What's next?"

"This is it. I caramelized onions. That was the point."

"I thought you were working off a recipe!"

"Yeaaaahh. A recipe for caramelizing onions. That's the point. I wanted to caramelized onions."

He shook his head. He obviously doesn't get how my obsessive nature applies to food. Sure, I have ideas about putting the onions on steak maybe doing something with potatoes in the pantry. But obviously, an ingredient that takes 4 hours of periodic attention is something you prep ahead of time to keep in your fridge for a week of experimentation to come.

Already, I love me some caramelized onions with some scrambled eggs.

Dongpo Pork

2009-02-09T12:27:00.000-08:00

Sunday's experiment was a dongpo ro (braised pork belly). Here's the recipe I kind of used.

The boy (who has some strange aversion to fat and skin) even liked it.

100,001 wontons

2009-02-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I took an Asian shellfish class mainly because I saw salt and pepper shrimp (one of my favorite Chinese restaurant dishes ever) was on the menu and partly because I wanted to check out this cooking school. We paired up and drew from a bowl to see which dish we'd be preparing that evening. I was crossing my fingers for salt and pepper shrimp, but I would have been more than happy to do garlic roasted crab, too.

Just my luck?

My partner and I drew Scallop and chive dumplings. It's not like I haven't made hundreds or thousands or HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dumplings before. We tried to trade, but everybody was happy with their draws. So, my goal became: fold these little fuckers as fast as I can and then watch every other station cook their dish.

More luck?

I also happened to partner up with the one Taiwanese-American mother of two in the world who has never folded dumplings in her life, so no help there. My BROTHERS can fold dumplings.

When the instructor called the rest of the class over to demo the folding process, I was already out the gate and on auto-pilot while she carefully pleated her dumpling on the cutting board. Sure her dumpling was beautiful, but I'd already finished three by the time she was done. I don't think I made a friend.

To add to my annoyance, the two assistant instructors actually came over to me and asked me to show them how I was folding the dumplings. (Someone give me my class fee back!)

The dumplings tasted good (although, I question the recipe's instruction to use a food processor on scallops - puree anyone?) and I got to observe and eat all the food including giant portions of crab, so yay.

Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel

2009-02-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

Went to a DineLA.com Restaurant Week special prix fixe last night.

GORDON RAMSAY AT THE LONDON WEST HOLLYWOOD
1020 N. San Vicente Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
310.854.1111
thelondonwesthollywood.com

DINNER

Appetizers
Choice 1 - Confit Beet Salad - with ricotta cheese, beetroot dressing and crispy endive
Choice 2 - Wild Mushroom Veloute - with sauteed mushrooms and chive cream
Choice 3 - Rabbit and Smoked Bacon Ballottine - with vegetable piccalilli and toasted brioche

Entrees
Choice 1 - Jerusalem Artichoke Risotto - with artichoke chips, black truffle and sherry caramel reduction
Choice 2 - Crispy Pave of Sea Trout - with white cabbage and pickled ginger, kohlrabi and celeriac cream sauce
Choice 3 - Braised Ox Cheek - with port wine, horseradish creamed potatoes, glazed turnips and braising jus

Desserts
Choice 1 - Chocolate Savarin - with malted milk emulsion, salted caramel ice cream and caramel powder
Choice 2 - Creme Fraiche and Quince Panna Cotta - with gingerbread ice cream
Choice 3 - Kabocha Pumpkin Chiboust - with chestnut cream and green tea gelato

Note
Dinner also includes: Steamed Bamboo and Shiitake Mushroom Chawanmushi amuse and "Pre-Dessert".

Hope

2009-01-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

I am not usually an emotional person (although, I do cry at the sappiest movies). I was more overcome by paranoid worry than joy on Election Day. The insane McCain supporters who made the headlines (and who won't go away... Joe) had me worried about a loud, boorish portion of our country. The pomp of Inauguration Day went by in silence as I watched C-Span. Listening to CNN talk of 10-disk CD changers in the bullet-proof limos or to Fox News lionizing Bush one last time drove me to the preferable silence of the C-Span feed.

I have never been one of the Hope-filled Change-meisters marching to the beat of a charismatic leader, though I did campaign for the guy.

Instead, I was waiting for something besides inspirational words (and inspiring they are). I was waiting for an action.

As I read that President Obama signed an order to shut down Guantanamo and quit torture practices, I was overcome with emotion. I cried. That our country no longer stands for torture and illegal detention, that our country respects human life, that our country is moving to be better than its enemies... I was overcome. Finally, I felt relief, pride, and yes, even hope.

The start of beef broth

2009-01-19T21:40:00.000-08:00

Roasted beef bones, veal bones, and pork bones.

Miso Catfish Sous Vide

2008-11-18T08:37:00.000-08:00

I have to learn how to get the fish out of its sous vide package in a prettier fashion. In any case, here is a picture of the sous vide process:

Little Dumpling Squash

2008-11-16T21:41:00.000-08:00

To mangle The Beatles:

Little dumpling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little dumpling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

So cute:

Halved the little dumpling squash lengthwise and scooped out the seeds. A little olive oil, salt, peppper, crushed red pepper, cinnamon and into the oven for about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, my sous chef browned some ground beef with salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Drained and reduced the juices and sauteed shallots and maitake mushrooms (also called "hen of the woods"... my "that looks weird, I want to eat it!" purchase at Ranch 99). It was pretty good... mild, a little nutty. Reintroduced the beef to the mixture with cooked rice and cilantro. This was the stuffing for the halved squash.

I finely chopped some cilantro leaves and stems and roughly chopped some mint. The cilantro went into the dressing my sous chef was putting together (olive oil, lime juice, red chili and garlic sauce). The dressing and mint dressed the stuffed squash. Sweet and spicy.

Pictures for Surfsister, but I think I need Soul Brother #1 to take the food photos. The little dumpling looked better than this photo and tasted way better, too:

Braised oxtail stew

2008-11-12T13:05:00.000-08:00

I find Alton Brown entertaining and useful. He used short ribs for his stew episode, but I'm partial to oxtail... especially as I horde the small bits of vertebrae in preparation for another round of beef stock.

Seared oxtail and beef stew meat before coating it in a mixture of tomato paste, paprika, oregano, thyme, rosemary and braising it in the oven at low heat for 4 hours.

Two days later (because I didn't have time to finish on Sunday), I sauteed onion, carrots, potato, leeks, peas in beef fat before dumping the braised meat and liquid into a stock pot to soften the vegetables and serve.

Parsnips

2008-11-08T21:06:00.000-08:00

Tried out the recipe in Gourmet magazine. Pureed Parsnips with sauteed brussel sprout leaves. The combination of textures was fun. The snap of the brussel sprout leaves and the mellow flavor was good with the aromatic puree.

I think, though, I like roasted parsnips better than boiled. I like how the parsnip caramelizes when it's roasted.

It's best not to reply

2008-11-04T22:35:00.000-08:00

The best and worst thing about Facebook is that people from your past somehow come into your present. It's been a while since I checked in on Facebook, but this morning, while standing in line at the polls, I surfed the web on my phone and logged into Facebook to read some "status updates" - most people writing their support for Obama. One of my Facebook "friends" - a woman I knew in grade school and was in marching band with in high school, a girl who was my best friend for a couple years in junior high - was supporting McCain. Luckily, she lives in New Jersey, so her vote doesn't count (I say that jokingly as someone who has spent too many months playing with electoral maps).

Anyway, Pandora's box was open. After Obama's speech tonight, I couldn't resist getting online to check in on the status updates of my Facebook "friends." And there was her status update: "[Facebook friend] says the downfall will begin."

Seriously? I wanted to reply. Seriously? Do you think we're all going to become Communists? Or wear burkas? Or worst of all, become Communists wearing burkas?

It's best not to reply. It's late. I'm looking to pick a fight because I'm wired in such a way that I stand off from emotions and look ahead and worry. The McCain campaign revealed too many insane people who call themselves American. The crazy Halloween scrooge lady who wouldn't give candy to kids unless they supported McCain. Joe the Plumber who is voting against his interest and whose only reply to being questioned is, "Look it up yourself. Look it up and see why I believe what I do." "Terrorist"-shouting men calling to "kill him!" And not the least of all... Sarah Palin.

I live in the same country as these people. These radically religious, incurious, anti-science people share the same American citizenship as I do.

Tonight, it's best not to reply.

Roast duck and kabocha squash

2008-11-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to overcome my fear of autumn/winter squashes. I've always loved how they looked, but feared that they tasted too much like a pumpkin which I've never really been fond.

So, inspired by a recent Jamie Oliver show, last night I did a riff on his warm Asian salad of roast duck and pumpkin with kabocha squash. I basically wandered the Santa Monica farmers' market after not surfing (because of fear of rainwater contamination from the first storm of the winter). I looked for interesting squash to try out. Besides the cool name, I liked how it looked like a pumpkin but wasn't.

Really lovely and sweet with a sweet potato texture after roasting in salt, pepper, and crushed red chili. The edges were nice and caramelized and it was a good counterpart to the duck. Threw it together with a spicy soy sauce lime vinaigrette, cilantro, and mint.

Sous vide

2008-11-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

Last night, I was feeing a little like autumn, so I rigged up my own sous vide apparatus for a catfish with brussel sprout leaves. I dressed it with olive oil, shallots, thyme sprigs, and a couple cloves of crushed garlic (removed when served).

Instead of using a crazy expensive silicone wrap, I realized that I had bought Reynolds oven bags when I had a coupon and was curious as to what it was. It's been forgotten in the back of my bottom drawer until I learned about sous vide preparation. Worked beautifully.

Accompanying the fish were roasted parsnips and sauteed chanterelle and brown mushrooms.

Molecular Gastronomy: a foody masturbates

2008-10-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday, I learned a few of the basic processes that makes up this movement of Molecular Gastronomy.

Mostly, I find it wanking off about food... more so than usual, that is. I appreciate it on an esoteric, aesthetic level, but I find that when I want to eat a mushroom, I actually want to eat a mushroom and not just breathe the flavor in a foam. I like texture and chewing. I don't necessarily want essence of pea puree to explode in my mouth like stale baby food.

The most successful dish, I thought, was the seared duck breast (because it was cooked conventionally) which was topped with pineapple caviar. I did like these little bursts of fruity flavor and will probably be taking this technique home with me. The sweet and acid flavors of the caviar worked nicely to offset the fattiness of the duck.

In order to make this "caviar," combine juice with sodium alginate (a thickener) and then dribble drops into a calcium chloride bath. Osmosis sucks the water out of the juice drop and creates a cell wall around the drop. An example from Youtube:

Cooking for Gordon

2008-10-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night that I was cooking for Gordon Ramsay. Unlike my dream of Anthony Bourdain, this was not a sex dream.

Instead, it was about learning, gaining knowledge, and earning approval.

TV Review: Presidential Campaign

2008-10-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

I realized that these debates are really bad television. In good serial TV, each episode builds on what the viewer knows from past episodes and rewards the repeat viewer. Finely crafted TV is good enough to suck in new viewers without being boring to repeat viewers. These debates -- and probably presidential campaigns in general -- are REALLY BAD TV.

They just repeat the same things over and over... "he voted present," "he's going to raise your taxes," "use a scapel instead of a hatchet," "he started his campaign in a terrorist's living room," etc.

This does not reward the repeat viewer AT ALL.

Tony Soprano for President!

Stoked

2008-09-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I volunteered as a surfer to help mentors and their students in the ocean.

http://www.stoked.org/

It was a great experience and the kids' enthusiasm reminded me that it doesn't matter if the conditions are bad, you can get stoked by just being in the water.

Outta the way, kook! Woof.

2008-08-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

3rd Annual Surf Dog Surf-A-Thon is Sunday, September 7.

This year's doggie surf clinic photos have really got me in stitches. From this weekend's photos I found my soulmate in a grumpy bulldog. These two pictures in a series tell it all:

Photos by Michael Schrager

Rocco

2008-08-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

Rocco DiSpirito is one of the contestants of DANCING WITH THE STARS this coming season?

I guess he likes being on TV better than being in the kitchen.

The Wire

2008-08-11T10:38:00.001-07:00

I just got the email telling me that my pre-order of the final season of THE WIRE has been shipped. Woo!

I can't wait to watch some really good serial TeeVee again. I've been catching up on EUREKA, but it's no BUFFY.

Maybe McNutty and Bunk will be inspiration for me.

writer's block

2008-08-08T12:02:00.001-07:00

since 2002

Wotta Cock-up!

2008-07-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

Usually, I'm quite a mellow restaurant patron. I've never sent anything back and I always tip the waiter (percentage depending on service). But Saturday, I sat with my husband's work friends at a Mediterranean restaurant -- which was my off-the-cuff choice because no one could decide. There, I realized I have been watching too much Gordon Ramsay.

After the owner/host/waiter seated us in the small restaurant, no menus came after many many minutes, so I got up and muddled around the wait area to find only two menus available. I brought them back to my table and people perused. A busboy came by with water and asked us if we wanted soda or tea. G wanted wine, but the busboy didn't understand, so I said, "vino?" and he seemed to understand. He came with an Asahi beer. Everybody had a good laugh and G started drinking it anyway.

More minutes went by. I saw the owner/host/waiter take the orders from the tables against the other wall of this 10 table place, but he didn't come to take our order. Oh, well. No matter. We were talking. More minutes and no service. Finally, I got up to make myself a nuisance. I wandered back into the wait area. I also hovered around the kitchen to see the busboy and another Spanish-speaking employee diligently working. No sign of the white-haired owner/host/waiter. I wandered back to my table, but I could sense G's work friends getting restless.

I dug around the wait station and found the wine list to get the price of the beer. I threw down some bills for the beer and told my party we were going.

Still no service in the dining area.

The only question I got was from the couple sitting next to me. The man had been speaking French with the owner/host/waiter and he asked, "Are you going?"

I said, "Yes. I was here before and the food was good, but..."

"The food is good, but it is very long. I have told him he needs more help."

His American date then said, "Where will you go? The Italian place next door is very good."

I felt weird about the recommendation from the date of the friend of the owner, so I tried to thank her and leave quickly.

She continued, "Or if you want really good Mediterranean food, there's this place--"

"Don't say that. We are here. It is not appropriate."

I laughed and said, "Yes, I feel bad. Don't tell me."

I could hear the couple arguing as we walked out the door.

This was the first time I'd ever walked out of a restaurant. If I were more like Gordon Ramsay, I might have waited for the owner and told him "wotta cock-up!"

Baby steps.

Earthquake

2008-07-29T11:54:00.001-07:00

That was panic-inducing. It was the biggest one I've felt in my short 7 years in Los Angeles.

Wasn't sure what to do, and now I know.

Engagement Ring

2008-07-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

Cooperfish Hornet 9'7"

No reservations?

2008-07-24T16:26:00.001-07:00

I had a dream about eating with Anthony Bourdain. In essence, it was a sex dream even though there was no sex.

It left me wanting to eat, to have an adventure, to get out and do some vaguely hallucinogenic things again. I have been whittling away my days in front of the computer rather fruitlessly. I read the news about elections, recessions, and wars. Things seem to go in my brain and rattle around a bit without getting processed before going out again.

I feel age hardening around the edges and I find myself silently stewing in anger during the day.

Surf Etiquette (aka stuff we already know)

2008-07-22T10:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ig-mannerist20-2008jul20,0,1719034.story

I heart Joss Whedon

2008-07-16T11:20:00.001-07:00

...and Barney, too.

Dr. Horrible

Mobile

2008-07-16T10:43:00.001-07:00

Testing out the mobile blogging. If it works, I'll be posting
probably no more than usual.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Blog from phone

2008-07-16T10:07:00.001-07:00

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Unbalanced

2008-06-30T21:11:00.001-07:00

I was never a morning person. My friend Megmegam liked riding with me to pre-dawn morning location shoots because she would get in the car and light her cigarette and I would grunt good morning and off we'd go in silence.

Then I started surfing and I would anticipate my alarm and be in the water pre-dawn, waking up in the morning light with a wave under my bum.

But my nature never changed. I was never a morning person.

I find now, post-professional movie-making, post-wedding, and amidst adjusting to Valley girl life as a weekend warrior, I am reverting to my natural non-morning person state. I am grumpy, I am lazy, I have a hard time waking up in the morning.

This is attitude is carrying on into the day now, too. I have to figure out how to get back in the water soon.

Wedding went well...

2008-06-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

Well... apart from one major freak-out.

Hey, we're married. And everybody enjoyed the reception.

I came home to meet a horrible cold and my head hurts so much right now my stomach doesn't know if it's hungry or wanting to throw up.

So I haven't been in the water as a married woman yet.

Last surf before I get leashed to the ol' ball-n-chain

2008-05-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's birthday surf was okay. Today's surf, however, was super-fun! I can't think of a better way to spend my last surf session as an unmarried woman. I was on the Cooperfish V-Bottom and I am starting to figure out the board. I haven't got it completely under control yet, but I've discovered how fun the bottom turns are on it.

There's also something about the board that makes me feel like I'm about a foot above the wave. On one wave, I literally hopped to adjust my position. Both feet were off the board and I felt like I was floating. Then I got to drive into the turn from the tail. It almost felt like I was making a sharp 90-degree corner.

The major thing I can't get is when the wave breaks on the shoulder in front of me and I am not in a position to kick-out. Usually, I like to kick the board over and hit the whitewater and use the whitewater to straighten me out toward shore. This board doesn't like the whitewater. The V-bottom gets tippy and bucks at the turbulence of the white water. Pretty much every single time I tried to end a wave like that, I lost the board and had to swim. I needed the exercise anyway.

This afternoon I bought a waist-cinching corset and shaping underwear to wear under my wedding dress.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful...

2008-05-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

After a lifetime of no traffic tickets, I've gotten 3 in the last two months. I don't know if it's just all catching up to me or what. I admit guilt to the first two: 1) I didn't come to a complete stop (but it's a friggin' Prius and if I'd bumped you going 2 miles an hour, you could just push me back to a stop); and 2) I was speeding on the 405 going to Huntington for a surf at 6:30am on a Sunday morning (wouldn't you?).

But today I won't eat the ticket I just got. I stopped at a familiar light for a "no turn on red." I waited and waited and waited. I waited until the cross-traffic used their left turn signal. I waited until the giant van made it's U-turn at the left. And when it cleared, I started moving. I was turning as my red light was changing to green. Not soon after, I saw the flashing lights and it was game over. The cop even admitted to me that she saw me wait at that light, but because of that FRACTION OF A SECOND where I was moving as the light was red, I was busted.

For FUCK'S SAKE.

I think I know why this is happening. It's because I am not paying as much as Mr. Hum-V to fill up my Prius's gas tank, so I am being targeted to pay the State an equal share in tickets.

I'm no expert, but...

2008-04-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

Because a triathlete was killed by a shark in Solana Beach this morning, the LA Times linked to an old article about a rise in shark attacks off California's coast.

The last line reads:

"Experts advise caution when entering shark-infested waters."

Sharkbait's local spot: my bad, your neato, our cool, their dumb

2008-04-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sharkbait's local spot: my bad, your neato, our cool, their dumb

Sharkbait's post makes this transitive vampire really happy.

Freak out subsides

2008-04-10T11:31:00.001-07:00

He sent me an Excel spreadsheet with yes, no, and maybes tallied. And using his advanced Excel skill-set, he made a working worksheet with tallies broken down into categories of family, friends, and Pennsylvania community. It's a thing of beauty and I feel much better.

We are seriously talking about this song for our "first dance":

Nothing says love like an Excel spreadsheet.

Wedding freak-out

2008-04-09T10:37:00.001-07:00

I haven't had one of these in a while, so I thought I'd share.

I am FREAKING OUT.

I thought this was going to be a manageable wedding of around 100 people. Today I find out that there are about 43 members of the community -- his family's community, not even members of his family -- who are showing up. And there are probably going to be MORE. This number does not include his family and friends.

And he wants to reconsider my idea to do assigned seating! I can just imagine my gay Athiest Jewish New York friends accidentally ending up at a table with more conservative small-town Muslim immigrants. I'm not calling it Gaza, but it will be awkward.

Do you know how many people are coming from my side? This includes family and friends. 48. That breaks down to 21 family and 27 friends. I have 1 cousin who's not sure and 3 friends who are also figuring it out. I have a spreadsheet with people's names and tick-marks as to who is coming and how many children. That's right, I've counted the CHILDREN so they can have seats.

I think it might be easier to get married to a woman because she might understand why being organized about this shit is important.

Good surf, bummer discovery

2008-04-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

Sunday was fun. I had a bunch of crap waves, but I had two stand-out lefts that kept me carving and a bit of stepping. Those two waves made the whole session worthwhile.

Unfortunately, I found out as I was putting my Cooperfish into the car that the nose that had previously delammed from my neglect a few years ago, is now showing signs of coming apart again. The rails about 5 inches from the tip of the nose are cracking and I'm not sure what to do. Those rails are pretty sharp and thin.

Oh well, I'm drying it out and I'll re-assess later.

I guess it's back to the 8'0 Raw. Or maybe I'll get back on one of my 7'0"s for giggles.

The Love Affair Continues

2008-03-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

The seal found my tail again today.

Seal hearts Cooperfish

2008-03-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

After a dry six weeks, I had a pleasant but pretty uneventful surf except for the fact that I was being sexually harassed by a seal. Okay, it wasn't really harassing ME, but it was lovin' on the tail of my Cooperfish Hornet.

Since I'd lost that will to surf for a while there, I decided the best way to feel good about being in the water was to take out my favorite board. That Raw board just wasn't giving me a reason to wake up in the morning.

As I was sitting on the Hornet, I happened to catch some movement underwater and glanced back to see the seal submerged, batting at the pintail with it's front flippers. Aw... kinda cute. Okay, wave.

Then as I was sitting on the Hornet trying to stuff some floating plastic bag into my wetsuit to be emptied later into a bin, I felt a brush against my leg and I screamed like a little girl and paddled like a maniac. I think I shocked the swimmer trying to get into shore. SpongeBob laughed, "Was it the seal or the swimmer against your leg?"

"I hope it was the seal!"

Later, as I was lying on my board, SpongeBob called over, "The seal is lying on the tail of your board!" I glanced back, and indeed, it was resting its head on the tail of my board. I figured I could live with that since I was doing pretty much the same thing, hanging out, sunning myself. I turned back to the horizon. Then I felt the board start capsizing and I glanced back to see the seal trying to haul itself onto my board.

"He's humping your board!" Sponge Bob shouted.

Okay. I know most people's mornings aren't complete without a little animal/inanimate object touchy-touchy, but by this point I was feeling a little jealous. My board, and if anybody's going to straddle it, it's going to be me. I paddled like a maniac.

Engagement Ring: Update

2008-02-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

I'm on the Customer Page!

Step Aerobics

2008-02-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

In my quest to lose 30 pounds in a month (I'm kidding), I went to a step aerobics class this weekend instead of subjecting myself to urban runoff. I was cocky at the beginning because I instantly remembered how to do a grapevine. It was somewhere during the "revolving door straddle turn diagonal kick combo" that I decided just to hop up and down in a sort of frenetic jitterbug.

The Leash is Cursed

2008-02-18T07:20:00.001-08:00

Saturday morning didn't appeal as I looked out at Home Break. I heard someone say the Porto jetty was overhead, so I decided to wander out there. Not to surf! Just to watch!

As I pulled up in the parking lot, I saw a lot of rolling water with set waves walling up. With no one on them, the waves looked deceptively makeable and small until a particularly big wave would roll through and erase any doubt that this was THE OCEAN.

A couple of guys were gabbing behind me in the parking lot. As I was lacing up my running shoes, one of them kept talking about how he'd go out if he had a leash and "I'm going to go home and get a leash."

I turned to him and asked him what length. 8-foot, 9? "Here, take mine." The back of my car seems to have collected a couple of neatly coiled longboard leashes because I dislike using them so much. "I'm pretty sure this is the 9-foot one."

"No, I can't take your leash."

I shrugged, thrust the thing at him. "No worries."

He thanked me as I jogged off toward the jetty. (The jetty was a great show, by the way. Better shape there, but a harrowing drop that closed out quickly if you weren't in the right spot. A few spongers in the mix just screeeeeeming along the face with amazing speed. But that's not the point of this story.)

I jogged back and marveled at the handful of people who were scattered out at different "peaks." I couldn't imagine what they were thinking. If I were out there... I wouldn't be out there.

From my vantage point on the bike path, I could see a big set on the horizon. Paddle!!! The shortboarder who had been flirting with the line made it. Then I saw a longboarder further down the shore paddling hard to get outside this thing. Uh-oh. This was an eerily familiar sight.

He was not in a good spot. Big wave, lots of water, and he's not going to make it over. So he turtled at the only moment you could in this situation. I couldn't see him, but I knew what was happening because it happened to me. Turtling, he was getting sucked up and over. That board was broken. As sure as I knew mine was snapped when I was underwater, I was equally sure his gone. I looked for him in the whitewater after the wave broke and started to get a little panicky because he wasn't showing up. Finally, I saw his black outline amid all the white. And then I saw something skittering toward shore. Half a board.

So I continued walking back to the parking lot. (I supposed I had stopped because those waves had stopped time.) As I got closer, I saw the surfer with the broken board walking with his friend. The surfer was the guy to whom I gave my leash!

I felt awful. Sorta. He might not have gone in if I hadn't given him my leash right there. He might have gone home for his leash and realized that going out in that water was not rational. Then again, he might have gone home for his leash and gone out anyway. He was making quite a lot of talk with his friend about doing so.

One thing I am certain of, the leash is cursed.

The Wedding Project

2008-02-13T18:16:00.000-08:00

Grace and/or Gulam

Awesome!

2008-02-08T16:34:00.001-08:00

I have been watching the Rotten Tomatoes for our film and for Fool's Gold and seeing that, in quantifying something unquantifiable, Rolling Stone had it right:

"That generous half star rating I tacked onto to this comedy abomination is all for Paris Hilton. [...] You've been warned. But it's still better than Fool's Gold."

Our film is just as bad or maybe even slightly BETTER than Fool's Gold which was made for 10 times as much money.

Just looking on the bright side!

Demon Dog

2008-02-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

The boy has the loudest quiet dog in the world. In preparation of our married life, we've started divvying up the household chores and walking Demon Dog in the morning hours comes under my purview because, theoretically, I have long shed my natural bitter morning 'tude for the joys of surfing.

However, I have not surfed before work on a weekday for a very VERY long time - ever since the movie filmed last year. Sorry for the plug:

Anyway, this morning, I did not want to leave the warm bed. Otis The Dog is not a dog who whines nor does he make much vocal noise at all. Instead, the bubbah shakes his head, thwapping his ears so it sounds like a tiny helicopter stalling out over and over again. He also stretches. This in and of itself is fine, but when combined with claws grasping into carpet for leverage for his downward-facing-dog position, I find the prolonged stretch to be as annoying as fingernails on a chalkboard. He does not whine or growl or bark but sheee-it... passive-aggressive much?

The worst thing about morning duty, really, is knowing there was a time I would have willingly hopped out of bed to get dunked in freezing ocean water. Shivering bleary-eyed under blue skies this morning and waiting for the bubbah to take a dump, I started thinking about surfing for some reason and I missed it.

Demon Dog and Puppet: "we are going outside now... we are going outside now... we are going outside now..."

Thruster

2008-01-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I've been on anything other than a single fin or a 2+1 set-up. This old 8'0" I'm currently riding has a glassed-on thruster set-up and I admit I'm really enjoying the drive.

No pork and alcohol

2008-01-11T18:20:00.000-08:00

So, I really need to surf this weekend and I'm kind of hoping that it's going to be big because I have a dinged and buckled ugly 8'0" with which to play Bumper Boards.

Last weekend I met the future mother-in-law for the first time and I'm pretty sure it went well. I think. I guess. I don't know. The boy tells me it did, but I didn't really get to know her. She's an immigrant Indian Muslim widow living in small-town Pennsylvania. I'm marrying her atheist son, but I'm doing a Muslim Nikah ceremony for the sake of familial harmony.

My parents, immigrant Chinese Buddhists who lived in small-town Illinois for 25 years seem to be the more liberal party in this matrimonial negotiation. And let me tell you, it absolutely blows my mind to be using the word "liberal" to describe my father! I NEVER thought as I was growing up that he'd end up to be the "cool" one.
My sweet and accommodating mother just wants me to be happy and will do anything asked of her, but that only causes me to get defensive in these matrimonial negotiations because I want to protect her from discomfort and awkwardness as much as I can. I am just frustrated whenever I think that the more liberal party has to bend to the more conservative one.

So, I'm going to try to stay away from crowds this weekend if it's big because I have this feeling I'm going to be doing some really stupid stuff in the water.

RIP Doc 3

2007-12-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

Actually, I had a feeling it was going to happen when I suited up. Chilly in the parking lot with Sis and CYT.

Big wave, I was too far inside. Turtled and had a moment when I considered holding onto the board and cartwheeling with it, which I've done before, but never on SUCH a big wave. So I let it go. I was jerked back and dragged under water with a lot of force by my leash. While I was cursing the leash, all of a sudden, I wasn't being tugged quite so hard and I knew. It wasn't a surprise when I surfaced to find myself attached to half a board.

What I don't get is that obviously my board was in one piece as I was being dragged. Not quite sure what happened to snap it in two while I was still under water.

Oh, well. I have to stop abusing my sanded glass boards. I love them because they're light, but I'm starting to think I should go epoxy at this rate.

So, it's a beater board winter for me! If you see a short round Asian girl frowning at a Raw 8'0" she inherited, that's me. I really dislike those Raw boards. No reason, really. I just find them incredibly plain and ugly. They look... functional.

I had promised my friend that I would fix the dinged up nose and the shattered tail and sell the board for him, but I never got around to it. Instead, I'm going to give him some cash and thrash the hell out of it on some winter waves. Should be fun.

Engagement Ring: His

2007-12-19T23:16:00.001-08:00

We are talking to someone about my engagement ring. A hint.

So, I wasn't crazy after all.

2007-12-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

Forgoing the zoo of Big Wednesday, I was looking for something like a Mellow 6-Foot Thursday this morning. I got up when the dog alarm went off at 5am. Usually, Otis will go back to sleep for an hour and a half when you give him a sharp command, but today, I decided not to snooze the dog alarm and took him for a quick walk in the dark and off I was to see what the popular point was looking like. Mushy on the high tide and not that appealing.

So I headed back down to home break and thought I was going crazy because I SWORE I saw corners. But maybe my brain wasn't working, maybe there was not enough light for my feeble eyes, maybe it was a trick. No, there it was again. A corner.

And a curtain of water fell in the following set wave. But it wasn't really a CRASHING, HOLLOW sound. It was a high tide sound: a loud, but mushy sound, like a sumo wrestler stepped off the side of a pool and fell into jello.

Still, though, I thought I was crazy. It wasn't until Mr. Love came around with his enthusiasm that I decided standing around getting cold was ridiculous when I could be paddling in and seeing for myself.

That first paddle-out wasn't too bad. I waited for the lull and was able to scratch over the rolling waves.

But then I got frustrated. I sat and waited and paddled for rollers that wouldn't break. I pulled off of things that looked like close-outs. I was starting to think I'd have to take one of those if I wanted anything. Finally, Sensei J told me that there was shape. "Even the ones that look like close-outs, there's shape, just get on it and you can go down the face!"

Okaaaaay.

So a perfect example popped up. It had just enough shape as it approached to make me turn around to paddle into position. As it got closer, it loomed over like it was going to close, but I took the advice and just went. Speed speed speed and I was turning into the bottom turn going frontside when I realized that I could look up at the wave. And I could see that I wasn't fast enough or in trim enough to make the shoulder.

But it was good enough.

I got caught inside in a hole on a set, so I gave up trying to paddle in at that spot and walked out and back up the beach to a spot with easier entry.

The next right was much better. I actually had some shoulder time.

Started paddling back out when I saw a rogue wave rising out of the water. The giant curtain of water started to come down and I was in exactly the WRONG SPOT. There was no way to duck or turtle, so I ditched my board and dove through the wave. (When was the last time I ditched my board?!) The wave pushed me down and took the board, so I was being dragged underwater by my leash. (When's the last time I wore a leash?!)

No fun! (But in a way, it IS fun!) Woo!

I may not understand the need for speed on two wheels, but I totally get the thrill from dropping down a nice-sized face of water.

Two-wheelin' it

2007-12-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

The timing could not have been better. After a first big wash of rain on Friday, I was not about to get into the ocean until the prescribed 72-hours was done. Luckily, my fiance (yes, that's right, we're engaged) had signed us up for a motorcycle riding class for the weekend.

I've always wanted to learn and he got revved up by some riding co-workers when he expressed interest.

The class we took was really great. Highly recommended if you're just thinking about riding for recreation because it scares the bejeezus out of you. Basically, we learned how every element out there on the road is out to get you. After the classroom, you get about 10 hours on the bike over two days. The first day it was thrilling. I found out that I am good at going fast around corners, but I suck at the slow, tight figure-eights. My wrists and forearm muscles started getting stressed because the clutch and brake levers were too wide for my tiny hands.

By the second day, I think the novelty wore off. I was really good at finding neutral whenever we were idling because my left hand started having spasms from gripping the clutch. And, by the end of the day, even though I finally started getting the hang of slow, tight figure-eights and got to blast through off-set weaves, I couldn't help but see riding as a really expensive hobby.

I'd love to hear from Whiff or Sis's husband or any other riders. I'm sure I'm missing something about motorcycles. I had fun and am glad I learned the basics, but I didn't get the bug, that's for sure.

On the other hand, I had the bug for surfing even before I caught a legit wave.

Bound by the Leash

2007-11-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

Miss Sis's post got me to thinking more about what I'd already been thinking. Going leashless improved my surfing exponentially. I've learned how to control my board and kick-out and I have a greater comfort in crowds because going leashless has made me more confident in my abilities.

I have another girlfriend who went leashless this year and you can see the difference in how she relates to the wave -- she looks comfortable and in trim. She's finishing her waves instead of hopping off the board. She is leaps and bounds better than some of the other people who have been surfing alongside her for the same amount of time.

As for me, it doesn't even occur to me to put on a leash if it's waist-high (chest-high if there is shape). It's a little weird when surf buddies greet me on the way down to the water with, "No leash?" I take a look at the easy waves and wonder if they even see the same thing I do.

Put me firmly in the "leashes suck" camp. I mean, how could I even consider doing a coffin-reverse coffin if I was tied down with a leash?

I like surfing

2007-11-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

Go figure.

Small waves, big board, some shape. Home break this weekend. Kinda stupid fun. Evidenced by my coffin-reverse coffin move on one knee-boarded wave.

I knee-boarded because the wave was too small for me to get into otherwise. I ended up kneeling too far up on the board, and being leashless, I will hold onto the board with anything, even my ass. I somehow found myself lying ass-down on the board with my head at the tail. Through the white-water, I saw Bart laughing at me so I waved. Somehow, as the white-water got more turbulent the closer to shore I got, and I found myself having done a full 180 turn, still ass-down, with my head at the nose of the board. I was in hysterics all the way back into the line-up.

That was the stupid fun. The serious fun was cross-stepping to the nose, carving on some shoulder, kicking-out, and calling a dude off a wave. That last one is important to me. Being mellow and non-confrontational about people taking off in front of me, I'm starting to take heed of the regular guys who want us girls who can surf to take on some of the burden and to start calling out the newbies and kooks when they breach etiquette.

I was up and setting up for a nice backside topturn when I saw a guy on a little fishy windmilling his arms for the shoulder in front of me. His chin was touching the board and he was looking straight down the stringer, so I called out, "Hey! I'm up!" He backed off and I was able to turn and carve to the end of the wave. And, yeah, my ego threw in some extra style as I rode past just to let him know that I surfed WAY better than he did. :)

What to do in Kauai when it's flat

2007-10-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

In no particular order:

Kayak any of the rivers
Drive/hike Waimea canyon
Eat poi
Drink beer while listening to the 20 mph trade winds whistle through your bottle
Have sex
Watch local team news coverage about the SuperFerry
Attend a cheesy luau for the first time (and never have to do that again)
Boat ride up the Na Pali Coast
Look at all the beautiful breaks that aren't breaking
Snorkel
Tube through abandoned irrigation shafts
Chase a chicken
Chase a rooster
Contemplate over a mai tai what came first, the chicken or the egg?
Wonder why mai tais are so popular
Drink more beer
Go to bed at 9pm since all the restaurants have closed
Buy a ukelele

It was a week in flat paradise. I had reserved a surf lesson for my boyfriend in Hanalei, but we got there early and I made the unfortunate decision to check out the break first. Flat. There were about eight students and teachers on the ten yard swatch of bay that was breaking. It was as if you took ten yards of my home break on a weekend day in summer and plopped it in the middle of a lake and put an invisible forcefield around it. We cancelled the lesson.

The trade winds are amazing, though. It created some spectacular windswell on the East side, but if I wanted to surf sloppy, victory-at-sea conditions, I would have stayed home. But I loved how those tradewinds felt. I wanted to breathe in as much of it as I could.

On one of our trips on the two-lane highway to Waimea Canyon on the south side of the island, I saw silver-haired surfers with giant boards parked along the railing and disappearing into the trees. I made my boyfriend park the car and we followed the red dirt trail through the brush and was greeted with an empty beach as far as the eye could see to the right. To the left was a rock jetty and beyond that were about five stand-up paddlers catching long ankle-high lefts off a reef further off.

Welcome to Infinities. It might have just been the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. What would have been more beautiful would be if there were some size and right-hand waves.

The south swell began to roll in a day before my departure. In anticipation, the night before, I'd rented a beat-up epoxy 9'0" 2+1 longboard which was badly weighted forward (maybe from all the repaired dings). My long-suffering boyfriend and I drove straight to Infinities on Tuesday morning. He sat on the beach while I made the long paddle-out to the reef where I was the only chick in a tanned group of 7 or 8 guys which included one stand-up paddler. The waves were waist-high when they came in. Long lulls. But I smiled at everybody and whooped the best waves and made some friends so the vibe was pleasant and, hey, I wasn't in a wetsuit!

I didn't get the best waves of the day, but it was good enough. Long feathering lefts held up by the tradewinds coming off- and side-shore. Easy vacation waves.

I hate surf shops

2007-09-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

I tried putting on Yakima hard racks yesterday, anticipating a trip north this weekend with plenty of time to surf before going to a wedding.

In the boxes (and the running score):
- four Q-towers (+-0)
- five base pads, one is attached to a tower (+1)
- four stickers, two are already stuck to two towers (+1)
- three end caps, I guess I don't really need all of them (+-0)
- four clips (+-0)
- zero allen wrench, but I scavenged one that kinda fit (-1)
- zero locking houses (-5)

Obviously someone had bought this package, opened it, thought it was too hard to put together, and sent it back to Val Surf who re-sold it without checking the contents.

Feh.

I could also complain that my boyfriend didn't demand that the sales person check the contents, but he also bought it for me as a birthday present months ago, so I can't complain too much there.

Boogie, Bob, and Weave

2007-09-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

Boogie board - sheeee-it am I sore today. Paddled out into the line-up and breathed heavily while Surf Sister and Riab laughed and laughed and laughed. Thanks for your support, girls.

Cooperfish. Okay. I didn't need it, but I couldn't resist. I bought Sensei J's V-bottom board this weekend. After catching close-out after close-out on the boogie board, I didn't have the energy to paddle out AGAIN, so I traded the sponge for something easier... a surfboard.

Of course, paddling and taking off are fine on the V-bottom. Turning is a different story. On not so shapely waves, making a balanced turn on that board is more than challenging, it's downright comical. I saw D laughing at me as I paddled back out into the line-up and he said all he saw was my head bobbing and weaving uncontrollably. Thanks for your support, guy.

I see there's some kind of energy in the water. I'm taking my bobbing and weaving new board to somewhere with fewer close-outs tomorrow.

Kick-out!

2007-09-13T10:48:00.001-07:00

Needing to surf, no matter how unappealing the waves were, I trundled out with Doc III. The waves were better than they looked.

Short rides with a bottom, a top turn, and then a good launch off the bottom again to KICK OUT. (Frontside, of course.) It was all about the kick-out today.

My last wave had me a little befuddled. Frontside turn and I found wave that was going to jack up and pitch. I ended up high on the wave caught between thinking I should kick-out and thinking I could actually make a top turn and see where the wave went.

In the end, I did neither and chickened out of what probably would have been a cover-up. Instead, the wave took the board on a heavy rotation and I leaned back deciding I'd rather swim than get clobbered by the rail of the board. Curious. I actually realized that if I'd had more courage and derring-do, I'd have stepped forward and leaned into the rail that was wave-side so my board might not start pitching, and I might actually have gotten barreled. I wouldn't have made it out and I probably would have gotten a black eye, but I might actually have gotten barreled if I had just known what to do.

It's one of those a-ha! moments I treasure about surfing even if I sucked and didn't go with the epiphany.

Surfing, waiting

2007-09-03T07:03:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was super fun. No more to report than that.

This weekend I was landlocked in my Illinois hometown for a wedding. I grew up with cornfields in my backyard which eventually got turned into a Wal-Mart when I was in high school. I drove by and found the Wal-Mart had closed, but only because there's a bigger swankier location just off the highway.

Right now I'm waiting for my poker-playing surgeon of a brother to get here so we can go to the beach. I'm not sure what to bring for him because the beach break might be closed out. Should I put him on Cooperfish to catch the whitewater because at least it's stable? Should I put him on Doc III because at least it's only 9'0" and less mass for a newbie to negotiate? Should I just screw it and toss him my boogie board?

Yes, I bought a boogie board and fins a couple of weeks ago. I've only been out on it once, but geez is it harder than it looks! What was an easy paddle-out on a longboard becomes a session of getting tossed around in the impact zone. I felt like such a kook. And then catching a wave was an exercise in sheer panic-denial. I looked down the line as this thing was jacking up, my longboarding self wondered who in their right minds takes off on this?!

Still, it was fun... and much easier to carry out to the beach.

Poker-playing Dr. Brother just called and bailed. He ground out $6 in winnings and got home at 5am.

What happens in the Water

2007-08-16T13:28:00.001-07:00

After a frustrating Friday at work and a Saturday of old familial rhythms you thought you grew out of, on Sunday you send everybody off bon-voyage-"here's your hat, what's your hurry"-style and make a break for the beach later than you normally would. At mid-morning, the hourly parking lot is already filled and, instead of circling around and around, you pony up the day-long fee because you're about ready to jump out of your skin. You flip off your early morning buddies who are out of the water but who are heading back to the sand to loiter under the sun.

The black pavement of the parking lot is hot. The sand is hot. Your collar is hot and you speak too loudly to your buddies loitering at the water's edge. Who cares about the surf report? It's small and crowded, and just because of everything racing around your head, the water looks better than it ever did.

You can't get in fast enough.

You can't get a wave either. The brain isn't working as fast as the body and the body just reacts to the freedom of the water. All the pent-up energy pours out in a flailing of limbs. By the time the body tires out, the brain takes over and feels the water and sees the waves and helps you identify the catchable waves.

And there are a few waves under your feet. They center you in the moment. A drop-knee turn calms your jerky movements. You suddenly don't feel like you need to paddle full-speed to the buoy.

And you try to comprehend what just happened. Why you're sitting there. Why you feel better. Why you felt so bad before. You sound out to a buddy floating in the water and he sounds back... a sounding board for insights found in the water. A split wave sends you twice as far from each other and you're alone with those pressing thoughts again.

A paddle-out to the buoy doesn't sound like a bad idea. But it's not frantic, it's steady. It's even. Alone and facing the horizon, you can't see the condos and apartments, the cars and parking lot, the beach chairs and boogie boards. Alone and facing the horizon, you can't hear the humanity behind you. When you're ready, you can paddle back.

Weak-end

2007-08-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

Not very inspiring surf this weekend, but I was out there anyway to be social. The last thirty minutes of my Sunday surf saw me on my belly for every single wave. I figured the waves were not worth my energy to stand up, so I just started goofing around. I have to say, speeding along with my face against the tiny face of the wave and getting covered up in weak knee-high waves was pretty fun. I'm thinking of getting a boogie board and fins for close-out days.

The Purposeful Donkey

2007-07-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

I was really hoping to make a debut on the Donkey site, so I did everything I could today. Luckily, one of the owners of the Rocker Board Shop was out with her video camera, so I'm pretty sure my best wave of the day has been immortalized. Even lazier than normal, I took off on a wave and decided popping up was too much effort. I sped down the line on my belly, trimming like I'd never done on my feet, right in the curl. I should probably take more waves like that.

I also tried one on my knees with a transition to my ass, but by then, the whitewater was too turbulent and I donkeyed into the water with absolutely no grace.

I actually had real rides, too, but the most fun was taking pics of Handsome John's ass with my Frogeye camera as I chased him on a wave. I hope I got his cross-step in a shot because it's a beautiful thing to behold. I AM referring to his cross-step.

I'll try to develop the pics this week (yes, film!) and I'm pretty sure all of them are going to be bad.

Two surf-a-thons

2007-07-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I have two weddings to go to in the Bay Area during each of these events. Otherwise, here are two surf-a-thons I would gladly attend:

Surf Dog for the Helen Woodward Animal Center - at Del Mar, September 9

Make A Wave Project for Oceana: Protecting the World's Oceans - at my home break (shhhhhh!!!), September 22-23

By the way, check out the picture of the surfer snapping off the lip on the Make A Wave website. That is Most Honorable Sensei Master Frank.

**

Four days on Cooperfish made me donkey on Doc this morning. It was still hella fun, but Oy! fast fast fast. Tried to out-think the wave while the board was speeding along finding trim all by itself. I was just along for the ride. I had two opportunities (ie. lefts with shape) to get good backside kick-outs, but I did no more than power squat like I had to really GO, you know? Froze up and laid two big donkeys.

Small daze

2007-07-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Small waves, giant board, no leash, a dozen surf school students. Them's odds I like.

Small waves means I get to screw around on a giant board with no leash using a dozen buoys as an obstacle course. I haven't expounded lately on my giant Cooperfish because I haven't been riding it since I got Doc III, but for giggles I took him out and rediscovered the fun.

Today was even smaller than yesterday if possible and there seemed to be a plethora of boards to try. Board swap! Johnny R brought an old school POP board which Sensei J rode most of the session, leaving his new V1 Cooperfish lonely on the beach. It was just out of pity, really, that I asked to take it out for a spin. The V1 has a V-bottom and a really hard tail. I really don't know how to explain it, you just have to see it. Here's an example, but it's even more pronounced in person. The V-Bottom makes turning interesting. It's not a real forgiving board (as I found out on my first face-plant) so you're constantly managing your balance, but it's wicked fun once you dial it into the wave.

I seem to get extremely tired after sessions on small days. I think it's the amount of paddling that I have to do to get into waves as compared to my lazy efforts on big days. Small days also encourage me to keep going back for more waves, especially if the shape improves with the tide push like it did today.

Small days in the sun on a weekend with a growing crowd also make me appreciate how far along I've come in this whole surfing thing. I used to get really nervous and tense and not take waves because I'd be scared to hit someone. Now, I'm amazed at how relaxed I am. I think a big reason has to do with the kick-out. Like some worn Yu-Gi-Oh! card I got tucked in my boardshorts, I throw out Magic Rearing Kick Dragon to save me whether my opponent be Cursed Foam Board or Closing Jaws of Death Water.

Oh, there's also a wonderful thing that comes with more experience in the water: Trust. Yesterday, I found myself paddling out after a wave and I saw Johnny R taking off on a wave. I could see the ideal line he would have wanted to draw and I was in it. In a similar situation six years ago, I ditched my board in a panic and got yelled at. Yesterday, I paddled like a mad-woman for the shoulder and trusted Johnny R would go around me, hoping it wouldn't ruin his ride too much. He was fine because he's got skills. I was fine because he's got skills.

Today, I'd taken a pretty so-so wave in on the V1 and turned around to see a pretty so-so wave with Dancer and SurfSister both on it. Sis was closest to me, and I shifted to the side as best I could to give her some room to play. I knew Sis saw me and and I trusted her to keep her board under control. Not a moment of panic.

I think trust is a good skill to acquire in surfing. Trust in yourself, trust in others. Trust that the ocean is unpredictable and you have to open up your senses to take in all that is around you.

They're HEEEEERE

2007-07-13T14:26:00.001-07:00

Why am I so excited about this?

(Salvatore Laporta / Getty Images)

Fourth and weekend

2007-07-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

I met SurfSis on the mid-week July 4th holiday in Bolsa because there was a south swell and a lot of low-tide: a combination that causes close-outs up and down SaMo and Venice. Even at 6:30am, I was met with a LINE going into the state beach. Fathers had packed up the hibachis, the charcoal, the boards, and the kids and thrown them in giant vehicles. All up and down the beach (I REPEAT, AT 6:30AM!!!) families were digging in, entrenching themselves as if the British were invading again.

Got some nice waves, a baby backside kick-out, and a really long walk back to the car. As Sister and I got out of the water, she jokingly said it would take us 30 minutes to walk back. After I started chaffing in unmentionable places because of the walk, I realized her joking was going to be our reality.

All in all, a good holiday surf.

Saturday, I stayed local because of time commitments on my day. But I was up at 4am and, after loitering and reading and getting to the beach at 7am, I realized I should not have listened to all the reports of "smaller size" and I should have driven my lazy butt out to take a gander. I arrived at home break to see head-high close-outs and I kicked myself because I probably could have done a DP run to some better break.

Instead, I got a coffee and watched the show. A surf school was out and newbies provided cringe-worthy entertainment. But there were some stars, too. Sir Richard was getting his share of one second rides down-and-up. And Sensei J was pulling into every barrel he could find. I'd see the dark shadow of his form behind the curtain of water before the whole wave exploded on top of him.

I called Sister to give her the grim report and she breathlessly told me that it was big at Bolsa. I was resolute in joining her on Sunday. I invited Sensei J along and we carpooled down. Faced with head-high A-frames he ran out into the ocean ahead of us.

I had some good waves. Nothing terribly spectacular because I realized I was barely in control on these larger waves. There's a mind-shift that has to happen and I wasn't really jump-starting the brain. Not a moment of panic because, I realized, surfing OP and its close-outs regularly makes head-high waves with shape a piece of cake to take-off on. My problem is finding the sweet spot fast enough and making my brain work fast enough. I had a really nice left that I probably could have managed to make the closing section, but I saw the lip feathering and I instinctually went low and grabbed the rail to pop over the wave. I kicked myself when I realized I should have done a top-turn and come down PROBABLY to find more shoulder on the other side.

I lost both Sensei J and SurfSister in the drift. We all had different thresholds of paddling to stay in place. Since memories of chaffing were too fresh in my mind, I vowed not to walk more than 2 lifeguard towers.

The worst thing today was facing a rogue outside wave coming right at me. I turtled, knowing full well that this beast was going to take my board and flip me into a cartwheel with it. At least I can say I didn't let go. Unfortunately, the amount of water that ran across my face also forced out my right contact. The next thirty minutes was spent having absolutely no depth perception and getting a little dizzy.

For those who understand the numbers, I am nearsighted and have a prescription for something around -13 and -14. They don't even make soft contacts strong enough to correct me to 20/20 vision. So losing the contact in my dominant eye REALLY put a kink in my ability to catch a wave. To make matters worse, there was a little lull because NO ONE around me was catching waves.

Finally, I got a little right in and walked about five minutes to the car, hoping that, if I had a spare set of contacts, I'd be able to go in for another 30 minutes. Oh well. I was just glad I didn't drive.

Baby got Backside Kick-out?

2007-07-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

I need help, tips, some boot camp barking, or anything else anyone can spare to help me figure out the backside kick-out.

This past weekend's small waves were happy times for me to go unleashed. I absolutely LURVE surfing sans leash. If I were a guy, I imagine it's kind of like hanging free if you know what I mean.

My frontside kick-out, though not the spectacular arc some of the local stars exhibit, is at least in my control 99% of the time. I feel powerful when I can throw the board over the lip before the dumpy wall hits me.

My problem is the backside kick-out. I rely too much on the rail grab to punch through the dumpy wall. I know I need to stop the crouch, but my instinct is to hold onto the board so I don't have to swim to get it. My addled brain won't let go of this crutch.

Anybody with sage advice on how to get a backside kick-out going? This might just be my next surfing goal.

Me the nerd

2007-06-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

Is it bad that I am outwardly rejecting applications for our job posistion when the first sentence reads, "I am responding to your add for a producer's assistant."

Is it bad that I trash resumes of people who don't know how to use apostrophes?

Is it bad that the American public school system obviously no longer teaches grammar?

Go slow or go fast?

2007-06-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was back at the home break with all its humans and human effluvia. I witnessed Sis's kook magnet, but strangely, even with all the people in the line-up, I didn't have a problem and got my share of waves. Maybe part of it was my whole goal for Saturday was to NOT get my head in the water. It made me very picky about the sort of waves I took and it made me kick-out early. Not a drop of water went up my nose. Sunday I wasn't so lucky. My back-side kick-out is pretty much non-existent and I got dunked once.

Sunday also brought with it the joys of a sunny Saturday at the beach: trash floating in the water. I stuffed my wetsuit sleeves with floating bags, grabbed a wave all the way to shore, walked up to the trash bin and pulled out plastic bags like a hobo magician. I did this four times.

I was on my fifth paddle-out when a drowning moth floated over the surface of my board. Without thinking, I picked it out of the water and let it rest on my hand. Now I was stuck sitting on my board, responsible for a living thing, and no way to get to shore. I thought the best thing to do would be to kill it fast instead of letting it die slowly covered in salt water, unable to fly.

One of our loudest local guys agreed. He's a tough lookin' dude, so I held out my hand and asked him to kill it. "No way! I can't do that shit!"

Help came in the form of the biggest plastic bag of the day. It was thick plastic like something used to package products in the factory for shipping. I felt my feet get caught in it and I kicked it up to grab it with my left hand; the moth still in my right. Without thinking too long about it, I smashed my right hand into the plastic in my left and then crushed the whole thing up into a wad the size of a baseball. I stuffed it into the sleeve of my wetsuit and looked for a wave to take me to the trash can. I didn't have too much time to think about how we so conveniently use plastic to shield us from the ickiness of life (think about all that neatly shrink-wrapped meat at the grocery store). A wave came and I took my death package to shore.

My last bag of the day came from a Spanish language mercado. "El Super: Cuesta menos!" it read in bold colors. How appropriate. "Costs less!" It's our untiring consumption of cheap goods that is a major source of economic and class inequity as well as the more obvious pollution problem. I wondered if we were going slow or going fast. One of our biggest weaknesses is our inability to see how our actions affect life beyond our lifetimes. We live just long enough to begin to understand the consequences of our actions, but we also live short enough lives to be able to justify our selfish choices.

Sometimes it feels like a slow march to annihilation, but I wonder if maybe a giant hand might pick us up out of the water and decide that it's better if we go fast?

H2O Anxiety

2007-06-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

All week I had anxiety when I thought about getting into that water in Santa Monica. Seriously, my palms would start sweating. I knew I had to get in the water - being a month out - but I couldn't do it in water where there would be potentially high human effluvia.

So I drove to County and had a good time catching some okay waves on Saturday. The ones that didn't close out were kind of soft and my timing was off, so I dug a rail more than once and bunked some decent shoulders. Decent size - maybe chest-high on the tweeners. And when the infrequent set wave did come through it was probably head high, but I was always in the wrong spot. I had an onslaught of sneezes about an hour into my session and my sinuses started closing up so I couldn't quite breathe through my nose. This makes me think I might just be allergic to the ocean.

On my drive home, I talked to Suzy Q who let me know that Venice was closed again because of a sewage spill in Ballona Creek which just made me happy I'd driven 45 minutes to County. I'm not sure I can ever surf at home again.

Today, I met Suzy Q and we drove to RPB, which is really still too close to civilization for my health, but I figured I'd be able to keep my head out of the water on those easy waves.

I have to admit to having a stick up my butt about RPB. Too many people, too soft of waves, too much paddling. I have tended to be really tense when I've gone there in the past. This time, though, was easy. It was weird. We positioned ourselves between the bathrooms and the point and I found myself easily sliding into waves with confidence. It was easy to spot who you can take off in front of because they wouldn't be able to turn and it was easy to steer my board around those paddling out. My last wave Suzy Q and I had already loudly announced we were taking in so we "shared" it with one other guy. It was challenging to chase Suzy Q within two feet and manipulate the speed of my ride so I wouldn't run into her. The guy was much further behind me on this very slow wave, so I wasn't worried that we were ruining his wave.

It was a good day. It went a long way in easing my anxiety about polluted water and it made me see I haven't completely lost what little skill I had.

That goddamn water

2007-06-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm a little afraid to get back in the water. I'm not talkin' being afraid of big waves or sharks or kooking out. I'm afraid of the pollution in the Santa Monica Bay.

In Vegas this weekend, I could NOT taste the foie gras or the fallow deer. And I mean COME ON! FALLOW DEER! I can kid myself for only so long that I enjoy eating the foods I CAN taste... the sweet and acidic and tart things. Tomatoes exploded like light bright stars in my mouth. The cherries and reduction complimenting the foie gras were rich and tart. And the lobsters in the lobster salad were cool and sweet.

That's all very well and good, but I don't normally crave sweet things. The things I am normally drawn to... the savory things, the dark rich tones of shiitake or liver... they are tasteless because of this sinus infection brought on by surfing in red tide over a month ago.

I'm still dosing myself with antibiotics. Today marks one week of medicine. And my calendar says I am free this weekend to surf, but I really can't see myself out there.

It's not that I'm sleeping in. Today, I was up at 6am and decided to make use of that gym membership I've been paying for. I suppose I could have gone for a surf, but I told myself I wanted to finish reading the book I started last night so I read while I pedaled... stationary, but my mind was racing with the words. The stories distracted me from the fact that I wasn't surfing.

I'm really kind of paralyzed when I think about that goddamn water.

The idea of dousing my head with polluted water from the Santa Monica Bay this weekend freakin' scares the livin' crap out of me.

A Foodie senses no Flavor

2007-06-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

So, I'm awake early on Friday morning. I COULD go surfing... the first time in nearly two weeks. Instead, I opt to read the paper and do some gardening at first light. Why? Ever since dipping into the ocean almost three weeks ago, unknowingly in a red tide, I haven't been able to smell a thing. Surfing in Santa Monica while Venice was closed to a sewage spill a week later didn't help things either.

I toughed it out most of this time, hoping that being out of the water and doing some saline wash would eventually get whatever was going on. It didn't look like an infection (and I know this because I carefully examine what blows out onto the tissue after I make loud honking noises).

Finally, this week, I started a course of antibiotics (a prescription I refilled two months ago "just in case") because I'm going to Vegas this weekend. A town known to most as smoky casinos and ringing slots appears to me like a hedonistic playpen. Not only are there twinkly lights to amuse and sexy postures posted everywhere, but there are the expensive, quiet little corners with some absolutely fine food.

I am making another visit to Picasso at the Bellagio where I once had a melt-in-your-mouth black bass and a beautifully rich foie gras paired with a sweet citrus sauce. I would really like to taste tonight's menu, so I hope the antibiotics have done enough since I began taking them on Tuesday.

I think there has been progress. I'm breathing easier at night and the last couple of days of honking have resulted in some evidence that I did indeed have a sinus infection. Those particular sinuses were just so inflamed that they weren't letting anything go. I'm going to go have a bagel with some lox spread and see if I can taste it.

The other half of Becks

2007-06-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

This is the other reason I get tingly about the Beckhams. Posh takes couture onto the street.

Fash-UN!!!