Mung Beans with Vindaloo Sauce

I took a shortcut today. I heated p the uncut mung beans from the other night in water for about twenty minutes, then pured in a helping of the Vindaloo sauce I had left over from chicken the other night. Ten or fifteen minutes later, I poured this into a blender and blended for about two minutes. The result was great - lots of flavor, both the earthy tones of the mung beans and the spicy flavor of the Vindaloo sauce. The only thing I might do differently in the future would be to cook the beans, process them, and then cook in the sauce a bit.

Served with rice, and my new pork chop staple: Thick pork chops, stuffed with goat cheese. In a small bowl, blend the goat cheese with basil and Andalusian paprika, along with pepper to taste. After stuffing the chop, smear the remaining cheese mixture on the sides, along with a pinch of salt and pepper on each side; also, roll the edges of each shop in black pepper, or at least the fatty side. Broil 5 -8 minutes per side. Served with a cold, perky Chardonnay.

Chicken Vindaloo

Here's the meal I was talking about. The Dal worked out well. I still have about a cup of non-pureed Dal that I should use soon. Will probably lump that in with a pork chop, or cajun catfish.

MMMM. That sounds like a good alternative to the okra I bought for the catfish. Maybe some Dal and corn and catfish, or rice instead of corn.

Cooking

I forgot how much I love to cook. The past couple of years, as I've devoted more energy to B-School, cooking kinda fell by the wayside. Oh I still cooked, but my time for picking new dishes, shopping for fresh ingredients, and taking the time to do it all right, well - I was reduced to heat 'n' eat.

So, now that I've been away from classes three weeks, and graduated, and had a friend in town, here are some pictures of my latest work.

D brought down lamb chops from some animals she had to slaughter. They weren't really raised as farm animals, and weren't strictly organic because they'd been given hormones as part of an experiment. OK, that sounds scary, but in retirement, these critters only at grass.

What I did: salt, pepper, braised in olive oil. Also, I rolled the wide in in black pepper. It's my new thing - so easy, so good, I've done that with tuna steaks and pork chops.

Served with cous cous and, at D's suggestion, wilted spinach. That is my new easy fresh vegetable treat.

I made a pan sauce using the drippings, butter, rosemary, orange juice, and orange rind. The recipe said zest but read like that meant rind. Sure it looks disgusting, but except for lightly overcooking, it was superb.

A couple of nights later, I returned to an old favorite: pork chops stuffed with goat cheese.

The original recipe I followed also had me stuffing slices of granny smith apple in there, which is great. I was out of granny smith, so I cut up part of a red apple (Rome, I think). The main different is that I blended basil and andalusian paprika into the goat cheese before stuffing the chop. Also, I broiled this, instead of braising in a pan, and I was really happy with the results - so much so that I forgot to take a picture until after I'd had a couple of bites.

And - here's the food porn shot - the best I could do with my little pocket camera:

Automation

So the automate ad targeting bothers me. For example, earlier on Facebook I posted something about seeing a man air-rum to a Phil Collins song.

Sure enough, as soon as I had posted, Facebook recommended pages for Phil Collins and Air-drumming.

I thought this was funny so I posted something about Facebook being funny.

Sure enough, Facebook recommended Facebook.

Hands down the best example is targeted advertising. For example, on a lark, I looked up air fares from New York to Ulan Baator, the capital of Mongolia.

Sure enough, for a couple of days I saw ads everywhere I went online for "low fares to Ulan Baator".

What's sad is they don't know when the ads work. I started looking into Zipcar. Sure enough, ads followed. I signed up for Zipcar. I even rented cars and drove them on more than one occasion.

Sadly, I still seed Zipcar ads.

Home

It's official: I am now a homeowner. I own a co-op apartment in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City.

The NYT wrote up a decent article a couple of years ago (you may be prompted to login to get past their toll-gate paywall). If you look at the slideshow, the photo of the A train stop at 181st is near where I live.

I live in the area referred to in the article as Hudson Heights; it's basically where middle-class white people live, as opposed t the rest of Washington Heights, which is still mostly working-class Hispanic. Because I like the idea of living in or near a culture not my own. I prefer Washington Heights, and expect to make some forays into the neighborhood east of Broadway.

I like my building. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It's near the GWB, which is odd. However, I overlook an interior courtyard, so it's quiet, and I can step out of the building easily to a beautiful view of the Hudson river.

It's 500sf, a small 1 BR with a narrow living room and a galley kitchen. Pictures soon, promise.

My plan is to fix up the baseboards, paint, and move in by the end of the month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/realestate/18livi.html

Yet Another Property Update

Reading my blog, it may seem like I've had one thing on my mind - property - but really, there are long, slow, languid periods in between.

I was supposed to close today. Close, as in hand over money in exchange for stock, a proprietary lease, and a set of keys.

Instead, the seller's bank couldn't locate the certificates, so we're postponing.

I would recommend that anyone yearning to buy property see Waiting for Godot, in order to prepare for the pointless yet emotional journey that awaits them.

Property Update

The good news is that I passed the co-op board interview. Three months later than I expected, I finally sat in front of the board and was told, basically, that I was already accepted. We went through the rules, and I asked some clarifying questions, but basically, that was that.

So, I'm feeling pretty good about the apartment again. Going there in the evening, I got a reminder of one reason I picked it - walking downhill looking straight out over the Hudson. The apartment itself doesn't have so fab a view, but it's a nice route home.

The next challenge is closing. This would be a lot less complicated if I were already done with school ad had my loans consolidated. As it is, my various student loans are in different piles, and the left hand of bureaucracy doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing.

All the same, I have high hopes for moving in the spring.

Fox in London

For some reason, the memory of seeing a fox in London comes to mind.

It sounds like such an image, an analogy, a metaphor: a fox in London. Yet, it was so simple. I was visiting a friend who moved there for work, and on the morning of my departure, as I trundled out my suitcase, across the street I saw a flash of red, and realized the strange squirrel-dog was, in fact, a fox. It was like a Genesis album come to life.

Update: apparently I'm not alone.