Discoveries In Food

I have no pictures for this blog post, so here's my current computer background. Discovery?

It's been a while since I've blogged. That's because I haven't done a whole lot that's blog worthy this past month. Oh I went and hiked up Mount Hood with George a few weeks ago, but other than that I've been largely holed up in my room trying to get a ton of work done, putting in 10+ hour work days to offset the relative lack of time I'll have for Skritter work in October.

But work isn't strictly all I've been doing. I do manage to set aside time to put together proper meals and eat well. And so I've been having all sorts of fun learning how to put together single person meals better, and generally improvising and trying out new things. Here are a few of the things I've picked up on.

Trader Joe's: Liking It More And More

Now, some of you have already heard me fanboy out over Trader Joe's. You know who you are, so go ahead and skip this section. You've heard it all before. This is the last time, I swear.

So until recently I've never really done a lot of shopping at Trader Joe's. Back in Oberlin, they were not walking distance, and I was thrown off by the general impression I got that they were expensive. My Dad's a big fan though, and he told me their prices are actually pretty good, because they sell everything with their own brand. The prices are not bargain basement but not above average either. Even so, I was not keen on regularly commuting by car to my source of food so I usually went to our local IGA. And I also didn't like having to go to a separate store to purchase certain basics that Trader Joe's lacked. It was more a specialty store than a general grocery, at least the one in that particular shopping center.

When I was in Oakland, though, Trader Joe's was the closest thing there was. And for three weeks I had the place to myself (I was staying with Ralph, and he was off elsewhere). So I went to Trader Joe's and got myself just enough food to cover me for that time, during which I became thoroughly hooked. The food quality is generally pretty good, lots of interesting specialty items, and some of their one person meals work pretty well (though it's often hit or miss). And more surprisingly, the cost was very low. I managed to live off two dollars a meal for those three weeks. That's good. I later compared some of the prices between that and the nearby Safeway, and even with Ralph's discount card the items were on average 20% more expensive there than Trader Joe's.

The last concern was that they didn't have the full selection, that you couldn't get things like certain spices or basic ingredients that you needed, That it was mostly specialty items. But I think that's changing. I've been going to more and more Trader Joe's while I've been traveling, and they seem to be getting bigger and more complete. There may be a few odds and ends for particular recipes you still can't get there, but if you find one of the larger ones it's pretty much a one stop shop.

Anyways, regarding improving the food I eat, Trader Joe's does fine at providing healthy ingredients, but it really shines when I want to easily expand my meal with extra goodies that take little to no time to prepare. Their pre-prepared foods, mostly sides and desserts and beverages, make fine supplements.

Mixing and Matching

Up until recently I've largely stuck to recipes. This has been a good way to get the lay of the cooking land, but you can only learn so much. So lately I've been trying to strike out and try new things, and also making my own variations of recipes I'm well familiar with.

Probably the best example of variations on a theme is boxed Mac n Cheese. Oh, before I would occasionally add diced ham and maybe some special salt but nothing too out of the ordinary. I was first introduced to the idea of really messing with the formula in Tim Ferriss' book, the 4 hour body, where he gives the following recipe:

Make the pasta as normal
Instead of cheese and butter and milk, add in just a third of the cheese packet, and then a can of chili and a can of drained tuna. Heat.

Honestly, it doesn't look good. Tim says so, and so did my parents and grandmother when I went ahead and had some right in front of them. But it does taste pretty good. And it's got a good amount of calories and protein for those who are trying to put on muscle. So I tried it out and generally liked it, more for the fish than the chili though.

So I threw out the chili part and started messing with the fish. I discovered just adding in drained tuna doesn't work well; it comes out too dry, which the chili had kept from happening in the Ferriss version. So, while the pasta is cooking, I lightly pan fry the tuna fish in a good heaping of butter, letting it soak in. As we all know, butter makes everything better. I went easy on the butter that typically goes in with the rest of the meal, so it kind of evened out health wise (not that mac n cheese is ever very good for you, even with fish added). Throw in some seasoning on the tuna while it's cooking (Trader Joe's 21 seasoning salute, anyone?), mix it in once the mac n cheese is done, and you've got a solid and easy variation.

But tuna isn't the only canned fish, is it? Just the other day I tried out putting in some canned sardines in tomato sauce instead of the tuna, and that gave it a rich burst of fishy flavor too. Bonus: I didn't need to add the extra butter to make sure the fish was moist. The tomato worked well with the cheese sauce, reminiscent of having chili added to the meal but it wasn't so overpowering. Next will be herring, and then perhaps anchovies after that?

And that's just variations on one part of the meal. Two other favorite things I like to try adding are real shredded cheeses, which take more time than the packet but can really lend more flavor, and various spices, like throwing in some hot sauce, mustard, and herbs in general as well as seasoning salts. Point is, if I'm in the mood for somewhere between easy mac and a full blown made from scratch mac n cheese casserole (the epitome of the meal, in my mind), this is a great way to be somewhere in the middle.

Now I'm hungry. But there's so much more.

Pan Frying

I never really understood the difference between pans. I just kind of went with non-stick for everything, except for the occasional stir fry when I'd try using my wok. And when cooking meats and not following a specific recipe, I would improvise, cooking on either side and flipping however many times until it was cooked all the way through.

But now I know better. Thank you Gordon Ramsay!

Click to Watch Video Because They Won't Let Me Embed It

I tried this pretty much right after I found it. It didn't come out quite as well as the one in the video, but I'll keep working on it. In particular, I like learning that you can press on the meat to test doneness, that meat should be brought to room temperature before cooking, and that it's really easy to make a butter sauce right afterward. Again, butter, so tasty. Watch more of those videos for further cooking tips.

Now, that video has a lot of general advice packed into one quick video, where he just fires of nuggets of helpful data at a rapid staccato. For more in depth and slower information about pan frying, I found this site via reddit:

Pan Frying Lessons

This really brought home the importance of the fond. Since seeing this, I've cooked all my chicken, pork and beef on my cast iron (I think) pan, and in such a way that it doesn't stick. Every time it tastes so good. Thanks, Dad, for giving me that particular pan; it's made all the difference.

Balanced Meals

I've also been working on being more healthy in general. Vegetables or greens of some sort or another are included in pretty much all my dinners now. I've become a big fan of asparagus (only wrapped up in prosciutto sometimes, I swear), and have played around with kale as well. I'm trying to cut down the percentage of the sugary carbs like cereals and toast for breakfast, which tend to upset my stomach anyway, so I lean more on things like yogurt, grapefruit, and eggs. And who needs white pasta, white rice, or white bread? I don't know what my weight is (my jeans still fit well at least), but in general I feel better, and the various signs of digestive health have improved. Such is getting older I suppose; I have to be more careful. Progress is being made, though.

Putting It All Together

So here is the kind of meal all this experimenting has lead me to make. I had this last night, and not drawn from any particular recipe.

• Pan Frying Meat: salted and peppered skinless boneless chicken breast, pan fried in the iron skillet with grapeseed oil which had been brought to the right temperature first. Flipped only after the sides could easily come off the pan and were deliciously crispy.
• A Good Dose of Health, With Flavor: Chopped up some onions and asparagus and cooked in olive oil in the non-stick pan, moving them around occasionally. Added a handful of canned chickpeas and freshly minced garlic at the end for extra nutrients and flavor, respectively.
• Trader Joe's Supplements: I also had one spring roll heated in the oven and a small glass of wine on the side, and finished it all of with a couple chocolate covered orange sticks for dessert. Dead simple additions, but they really take the meal from good to awesome.

A healthy, full, tasty, freshly cooked and varied single person meal that took about twenty minutes to make, and wasn't too expensive.

I realize now I should have taken a picture.

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Photo Ref: 28 Hi-Def Calvin and Hobbes Wallpapers

August Retrospective

The past month I've still been doing stuff, but I've also gotten hooked on Google Plus so all my pictures and stories have been going there while I decide whether or not I like it. Not yet using G+? Let me know and I'll send you an invite.

Anyways, a summary of the last month's activities:

Went to Lake Tahoe to go kayaking, minigolfing and mountain climbing with Nick and Chloe and Stephen. Pictures. Mount Tallac, which we clambered up and down for pretty much a whole day, was probably the most challenging mountain I have climbed yet, especially the middle part with the rather steep pile carpet of big rocks. Also, snow was still there, which I don't think is something I've ever handled in August before...

Went home to visit my parents in Rhode Island. Had my obligatory annual clambake with delicious clam chowder, clamcakes, steamers and corn on the cob, a feast which I've only gone without for two summers of my life. We would have had fresh lobster but by the time we got there we were too stuffed to go on so we saved the meat for lobster salad sandwiches the next day instead. If you've never had this seafood fest I highly recommend it! Particularly with my Dad's stellar clam chowder.

After I got back to Oakland, I went up to Sonoma with Ralph for some wine sampling, thinking about the movie Sideways all the way. We checked out a couple places and tasted some very good wines, particularly a late harvest wine which is made from grapes that were left out in the fields for about a month more than normal, and so resulted in a very sweet flavor. We ended up purchasing a particularly good wine from the Jacuzzi family for dinner later.

Other than that, things have been relatively quiet! I've been picking up on the work side of things, and also I recently set myself up with Mint, which has successfully placed financial order on my life and so has kind of put limits on how much I go about and do. It will be worth it though when later this year I will have saved up for a shiny powerful new laptop...

Hiking in the Rockies

I went out to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Nick's father recently moved to. He got this amazing house on the side of a mountain with a glorious view of the city below. Pretty much all of the house that faces the valley is made of glass in fact. There's also a hot tub and each bathroom is equipped with a jacuzzi. A great place for a little hiking and business retreat with the Winter family and George!

We spent a good portion of our stay climbing up the enormous mountains surrounding the city. These mountains are intense, at least compared to what I'm used to; they're much higher above sea level and steeper than the Appalachians I grew up with. Mount Olympus was particularly rough. It was a four mile hike that climbed from 5000 to 9000 feet. I got most of the way up, to the point where we could see over into the next valley, but I skipped out on the final scramble up an almost sheer rock face, feeling thoroughly exhausted and needing to husband some energy just to get down the rocky and slippery path. Even so, I got some great pictures, particularly of the curtain of rain that was at that moment pouring down onto the other side of the city.

See them pics

I discovered though that I do not in fact want to use RAW photos. On a lark I switched my camera to save all pictures in RAW format without realizing how much longer it would take me to process the photos. Back to JPEG I go.

Besides hiking the mountains, swimming in the pool, and eating tremendous food provided by our hosts, we also got in a few good games of Dominion, playing online. If anyone wants to join in a game sometime let me know!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/

And finally, for about the last month I've been steeped in the western/fantasy epic series The Dark Tower by Stephen King. I have only one half of a book left to go and I'm really looking forward to seeing whether or not the plucky heroes can save all the universes from destruction. I recommend checking it out; listening to it via my Kindle's electronic voice while driving a two day car trip really made the time fly by, let me tell you.

Kerrville Folk Festival

 

About a week after I arrived in Austin I was brought along to the Kerrville Folk Festival for its final three days. It's about two hours drive away, and is basically a two and half week long jam session on a ranch. Thousands of people, many from Austin, go there with tents, RVS, and other more creative forms of shelter and camp out around the main performance area, setting up their own common areas where people go to hang out and share music, food and beer with each other.

There were five of us, only one of whom had been there before, and this veteran assured us that we wouldn't have to worry about room and board as volunteers. And he was right. We got there at the last moment and signed up on the spot as peacekeepers. For volunteering not only did we not have to pay to be there, but we also got two free meals a day, so that essentially we didn't have to pay for anything if we didn't want to. And I got a particularly good job: roving. I spent four hours a day wandering around among the camps, wearing a radio and drinking lots of water, and then regularly breaking to just sitting down and talk with people

Everyone has to drink a lot of water. These guys were indispensable.

It was very dusty on the ranch. There has been a drought in the area for the past year or so, so the festival staff was doing everything they could to keep the dust level down. Vehicles had a strict speed limit of 5mph. There was a truck driving around spraying water on the roads. Many people wore hankerchiefs over their faces, especially those working in the parking lot which was quite the dust factory. And the communications building (which was next to said parking lot) had a strict closed door policy; you had to sneak in quickly, letting in as little dust as possible to protect the sensitive equipment. Despite all the precautions, one could say the dust was winning based on how all the vehicles looked after they had been there more than a day.

While I was wandering around on the job I explored the maze of camps and tents. There were several people who brought teepees, and a good number of buses. One camp was simply four buses that were parked in a square. Off the dirt roads, the camp areas were labyrinths of tents and overhanging canvases with all sorts of cooking and general living equipment sitting around. Lots of coolers, lanterns and rugs, and various ornaments and decorations, even some couches and mattresses just sitting on the grass. All the big camps had names; some of the names were nostalgic, most were silly. The Halfway House, Mix'd Nuts, Camp Stupid, Camp Estrogen + Ed, Camp Ducttape, Shutup and Camp, Camp Kerrfuffle, Camp Fork in the Road. On one truck sat an appropriate sign: "In camp we dust." And to cool off, one of the camps had a slip and slide with an inflatable mattress on one end, and a kiddie pool on the other. I watched several people try unsuccessfully to surf the mattress into the pool.

It was hot and dusty during the day, but once the sun went down it was pleasantly cool. The wind went from hot to slightly chilly and the tempurature dropped to a very comfortable level. We had originally thought we'd just be sleeping on top of our sleeping bags, but it turned out to be cool enough to warrent sleeping inside them those nights. We didn't bother with sleeping in our small tent though. The five of us just slept under the stars, which were plentiful out there well away from San Antonio and Austin.

Resting up for another music filled day.

I've only been to one other folk festival: the Old Songs Festival which takes place in upstate New York. I went there as a kid with my parents and sister many summers when I was little. It struck me how different these festivals are. In Old Songs, there are a wide variety of performers, not just musicians but also jugglers and magicians, and there are many workshops for kids and adults to attend, doing crafts and alike. But that was all official, scheduled stuff. Though my parents tell me there was camping, we never really went to that part of the festival. But in Kerrville, camping is actually the main event, the real reason for being there for most people. There is a large stage where various bands perform every night, surrounded by shops and stores selling artwork and food and cowboy hats, but the camping areas are where people spend the most time. Some people never even go to the main show; they prefer instead to just stay in the camps and play music among themselves, and just hanging out. Once the main show is over around eleven or midnight every night, the crowd goes to the camp and the real nightly party starts, with people playing music in the roads and in the camps for several more hours late into the night until everyone collapses with exhaustion.

The people there are proud of what they do, too. "We talk shit about Texas all the time but we here do it better than anywhere else" one performer told me while he was strumming on his guitar during the late night sessions. Austin and the Kerrville folk festival have a lot of good musicians, and they love their music scene. Kerrville's a great place to get a taste of it, meeting a lot of the people who make it happen.

How to Couchsurf

For the uninitiated, couchsurfing.org is a social network basically, which is built toward connecting travelers with hosts. Everyone has a profile, which you fill out with your likes, dislikes, hobbies, all that standard 'about me' stuff with a particular emphasis on travel related details, such as listing where you have lived, where you have traveled, and what languages you speak. The more good detailed writing in your profile the better your chances of hosting and being hosted; what you put on there is going to be scrutinized.

Then when you are traveling, you search in the area where you want to spend a night or three (or more). You look through the profiles of people living there and send out requests. Then those people look at your profile and respond saying if you can come or not. I usually get about a 25% acceptance rate, and the most common reasons for getting rejected are either they already are full with couchsurfers or the hosts are on the road themselves!

Then, after host and traveler have parted ways, they usually write a reference for one another. The more references you have, the better, because these are key to a solid profile. If you've got a lot of good references, other couchsurfers can feel safe in the knowledge that you'll be a kind guest or host. This system works; thus far, everyone I've met who's a couchsurfer has been nothing short of friendly and hospitable.

I've been using couchsurfing.org a lot since I began traveling in May, and it is just the gift that keeps on giving. I've been telling people about it all the time, and I usually get one of two reactions: either "That's so cool, I want to try!" or "I don't want a strange man in my house...". To provide a few examples of what sorts of things happen when you use this site and to try and convert those who are wary, let me describe my three day trip from Raleigh to Austin earlier this month.

The first night I stayed over with some grad students in Troy, a small college town outside of Montgomery, Alabama. My host was Indrani, who is from India and she cooked biryani for dinner, which was just delicious (I love Indian food). We ate and hung out with her friends, and after dinner we went out and had ice cream, then grabbed a sweet tea for me to try (a popular beverage around these parts I have learned).

The second night was spent in New Orleans. I got there in time to join my hostess, Megan, for dinner with her friends, including her first couchsurfing visitor ever (I being her second) who was from France and was wrapping up a year and a half long trip around the world. The restaurant we went to was just outside the French quarter, so it was one of the places the locals go (no one who lives in New Orleans goes to the French Quarter, I was assured). I enjoyed my first Po' Boy sandwich and Boudin sausage there, which were delicious. The restaurant also served us tater tot nachos, which are nachos but with tater tots replacing the chips, which is as bad for you and tasty as it sounds. Then they took me to get snowballs, which are these special sort of crushed ice balls that are loaded with various flavored syrups. My palatte has expanded a great deal lately.

 Just outside the French Quarter

These were really good

Couchsurfers unite!

Though I had a great time out and about in New Orleans, I was worrying a little about the following night in Austin. I hadn't gotten an acceptance yet from all the couchsurfing requests I had sent out, and also my search for a room to rent for a month had been fruitless thus far.

I need not have been worried though.

I checked my mail after we returned from getting snowballs, and I had an acceptance from one Igor, a Russian fellow living with another couchsurfer and two others in a big house, which had seen a lot of couchsurfers. They had over a dozen people staying over during SXSW, so there would no doubt be room for me. He mentioned also there was a big party of couchsurfers going on the night I would arrive, so I would get to meet a bunch of the locals, oh and by the way Igor was leaving the following day for a two month jaunt through Mexico, so would I like to rent his room?

My very first night in Austin

Long story short, since I got here I've been hanging out with Igor's housemates and their friends, being brought along to do all sorts of stuff in and around Austin. But that's story material for another blog post.

Give couchsurfing a try sometime, you will not regret it!

A Rude Awakening

While I was in Atlanta I was introduced to one of the largest varieties of household cat: the Maine Coon. These are biiiiiig kitties, fairly larger than your standard cats and sporting a good amount of fur as well. The place we were staying at housed two of them, and they were a handful in a couple ways. 

 

While we were up and about they acted normal, for cats I guess. They rubbed against our legs, they let us hold them for a little while, they went out onto the balcony and from there climbed up and down the roof of the house.

But when we went to sleep is when they really became active.

There were about half a dozen of us sleeping in various places in this small living room. I was sleeping peacefully on an air mattress when in the middle of the night I became vaguely aware of the cats existing near me. I woke up a little more when I heard noises and realized one was clawing away at the plastic of my bed. I pushed them both off. They of course pretty much immediately returned, resuming the destruction of my bed. We went on like this for a while, me pushing them off and them jumping right back on very defiantly.

After a few rounds of this I realized I was sinking into the bed pretty quickly. Retreating, I moved to a comfy chair next to me and settled in to hopefully get the rest I very much wanted, but it was not to be. One of the coons jumped onto the vacant airbed like always, but this time without my weight pushing down on it keeping it firm, the cat pretty quickly sunk into it. The cat was not prepared for this. It panicked and jumped several times across the bed in a loud wild frenzy, then jumped off the bed and onto my bare legs, claws out, and launched onto the floor from there.

With mild lacerations stinging, I thought, "Alright, now they'll leave me alone, since they fear the bed."

But it was not to be.

I was right next to the foldout couch where two other guys were sleeping, and just as I was drifting off I heard in rapid succession:

"OW!"

"WHAT THE?!"

from that direction immediately before claws and fur attacked my face. The cat, for unknown reasons, decided to redo the berserk jumping claw dance, but this time across our heads rather than the half deflated airbed. Those of us who were not victims of the wanton destruction were awoken by the cries of pain and surprise. The cats fled.

After that we slept fine. Maybe the coons realized that their welcome was well and truly worn out.

Atlanta: The Temple

Back in May I couchsurfed my first few days in Georgia with Dan Berry of the Savannah College of Art and Design. I hung out with him while I looked around for a more permanent place to stay for my two weeks there.

A couple days after I arrived I tagged along with him for a weekend with other SCAD students up in Atlanta. We drove up one Friday night, four of us in the car, listening to music, windows down, speeding along in the dark only stopping along the way to grab some much needed late night grub at a Steak 'n Shake. We arrived at his friend's house where several others were staying over as well, and so about a half dozen of us ended up sleeping on a fold out couch, some airbeds and a chair in the tightly packed living room.

The next morning we set off to get to work on art projects. The latter part of the day was spent in a place they call the Temple. It's this large abandoned factory near a railroad yard outside of the city which has had its insides pretty much covered with graffiti everywhere. With spray cans aplenty, they set up shop in one of the larger and more well lit rooms and began doing their thing, replacing old artwork with new.

I spent my time wandering around, figuring out the layout of the place. It's an immense building, and graffiti artists have painted pretty much every corner, to a more or less extent. Most of it was brightly lit from the sun through broken windows high up on the walls or gaping holes where doors and panes of glass used to be, but there were lots of dark, dank places as well, with sagging ceilings that have been collecting rainwater for some time. I tried to figure out what it was they made at this factory exactly but it was anyone's guess, really.

This is just the entryway. There's way more around the back

The poster in the back says "Please keep this area CLEAN"

Natural light gradually making its way back into this place

While I was running around, Dan was drawing a trollface. He recently discovered the site reddit, and he pretty quickly fell in love with rage comics and started making his own. So he decided to practice his art by trolling previous artists, spray painting a trollface over their tags. At one point he called me over and had me shoot a video with his iPad while he did some finishing touches. Notice my expert steady holding of the camera in the second part of the video.

As the sun was setting we packed up our things and headed out. With no electricity or lights I would imagine the Temple is an eerie place to be in the night time, even more so than in the day time. If I pass through Atlanta again I'll stop by, and see what the artists of Georgia have been doing in their spare time.

Quick Update

It's been a while since I've posted. I got out of the habit after spending April in Rhode Island with my parents, doing work, helping out around the house and generally not having a whole lot to write about. I've been on the road though for a month since then, and am now in Austin, Texas where I will stay until I go to San Francisco in June. And how did I get here, what have I been doing in May? Well, that's what the next several blog posts will cover. Stay tuned!

Slow-Carb Diet Results

My weight. Dotted lines are when I couldn't measure a) without a scale, b) during the Arenal trip and c) going back to the US

While Nick, George and I were in Costa Rica, we tested out the Slow-Carb diet to try and get ourselves trimmer than we already were. Really we didn't need it that much, especially Nick who started off with 12% body fat. Usually whenever we told people we were doing it, we got funny looks, oftentimes with a strong hint of concern. After all, don't you only diet when you're overweight or anorexic? And we didn't look overweight. But we simply wanted to do better than good in terms of health, and there was a strong dose of curiosity and challenge, especially to see if this diet were as miraculous as Tim Ferriss had said it was in his book. Or in George's case, an insatiable hunger to prove him wrong.

It took most of the two and a half months in Costa Rica to get fully used to it, really. Mostly, it was me figuring out how much I had to cook. Nick and George eat a ton, and I never truly appreciated this until I had to cook everything for them. Given the tenants of the diet, they couldn't just snack on granola bars or cook up some pasta whenever they were really hungry. Everything that they ate six days of the week had to be prepared and cooked. And usually what would happen is I would cook modestly more than I would imagine three of me would eat, and it wouldn't be anywhere near enough. The wails and moans of hunger were competing with the toucans and geckos for acoustic superiority. It was also a drag on our work.

So finally at the end I figured out the trick. Cook up a ton of beans and put them in a plastic bag in the fridge. Beans are the main source of carbs in this diet, and so they could be snacked on whenever they wanted, or mixed with whatever paltry leftovers remained from before. I also gradually got used to cooking more every night, but having a sizeable backup source of ready to eat beans or lentils was key.

Granted, by the end it was pretty much just Nick on the diet, though he has since wrapped it up after settling into Pittsburgh. George and I largely gave it up after the Arenal trip. I had lost about ten pounds before Arenal and was curious if I could push myself lower without following the exact instructions of the diet, thus also figuring out how I would maintain a low weight post-diet, and I think George had simply had enough of dealing with it. I tried sticking to some of the minor hints and tricks listed in the 4-Hour Body, like making sure I had plenty to drink, eating eggs at the beginning of the day so I would be less hungry for food the rest of the day, eating slower and making myself stop once I felt full. It worked; I lost some more pounds, including the ones I had temporarily gained during the Arenal trip, and I felt confident I could maintain my lower weight without too much effort.

So, overall I think the diet works pretty well. It probably works better for people with more weight to lose, but it does the job. It really is important to eat enough, at least for some people. I seem to be immune to the bothersome effects of eating too little, but George and Nick felt the pain far more readily. As long as you eat a lot of beans, you should be fine. What I consider more important though is forming the habits that will allow you to stay at the same weight after the diet has done its job.

The most important thing I learned about this diet though is just how much fast-carbs form the onus of our eating. By cutting out this one subset of carbohydrates from your diet, it really makes you realize how much you depend on them for meals and snacks. Bread, pasta, fruit, starch and sugar are so much of what we typically eat. Perhaps if anything will stick with me beyond this diet, it will be a focus on eating more beans and vegetables in general, which I imagine can only be a good thing. Especially since it appears that my acid reflux completely went away when I was on the diet. And that's something I'd like to keep to a minimum.

Now, back in the states, I'm headed right back up in terms of weight, but on purpose this time. I'm trying the muscle building program in the same book as the Slow-Carb Diet, Occam's Protocol, so named because it strives to be as simple as possible while achieving maximum results. Basically I drink a bunch of protein milkshakes and go to the gym every few days at measured intervals for a few short but intense and very specific workouts. I've definitely been gaining weight and strength and soreness, but so far my belt has remained tightened at the same hole. I've only been at it for a week, so we will see how it goes...

Dinnertime, George

Uvita Photos #2

Have another batch!

What is it??

On the trail off Poas we found the weirdest plant. The leaf texture was very rough and inflexible. And the dark red stem was covered in little droplets, which stung a little bit to the touch. The three of us marveled at its freakishness, while Steve retold the piece of advice his botanist friend had said about Costa Rican plants: something like "if you don't know what it is, don't touch it."

On the way to San Jose from Arenal, the five of us stopped in a little town called Zarcero. It was a beautiful day, and they have this great park in front of the city church. I was remarking to George how nice this place would have been to stay at, it not being as hot as Uvita, when we learned from a local that this sunshiny day was the exception, not the rule. This was the first clear day they'd had in a long time.

If you're in Uvita follow this sign!

Hot!

Wouldn't be complete without a picture of this. Playa Hermosa.

Uvita Photos #1

Picked out a few photos that don't really fit into a larger blog post but are still good to share. Enjoy!

 Workstation: Kitchen

It's the dry season so our river was eminently walkable

Well, parts of it anyway. Whatever, he has Vibrams.

Walking from the town on the highway. We invariably go to the pool after this hike.

Nick waits in a downpour to flag down the bus while George and I take shelter nearby. Nick loves it.

George is the master of surfing now

Learning Spanish

It's a good idea when traveling, especially when staying in a place for a while, to try and pick up some of the local tongue. It's both practical and respectful to the local culture. For Costa Rica at least it's not strictly necessary, since enough people here speak English and you can get by, but it can make things easier and it's the perfect time to pick up such a skill. And you get brownie points with the locals.

So Nick and I decided to take lessons from a tutor. Tynan recommended them as one of the most efficient ways to pick up a language, since you get to work one on one or in small groups and the class goes at whatever speed works for you. We signed up for a couple hours per week, which costs $28 per person per class. Not a bad price, we think, especially compared to college.

Our one room school house

Class itself is fairly structured but with a healthy dose of chaos. We'll generally follow the packet the teacher gave us, but often we get sidetracked. Mostly this is my fault because I'll think of something tangential to the current topic (sometimes interesting, sometimes not particularly) and I'll go on to do terrible things to the language in my attempt to say what I'm thinking. I often won't have the vocabulary (or the verb tense) to say what I want to say, so I'm regularly asking '¿como se dice...?'. In this way we usually end up with at least a few dozen new words or phrases per class to learn for next time.

But class isn't enough! Two hours a week is less than half the amount of classtime one gets in a Spanish class in Oberlin, and I've got enough free time to do more. So Nick and I also study a textbook I bought on my Kindle before I left. It's alright quality, and often it teaches us words that aren't really used in Latin America, but it allows us to really pick up the pace of language absorption to our liking.

And to learn all these words from my textbook and from class, I use the very handy program, Anki. It uses a spaced repetition system, which is just about the best way to learn a large body of facts efficiently and effectively. I've known about Anki for a while but didn't really use it a lot before this trip. Boy do I wish I had it back when I was in high school, maybe then French wouldn't have been so painful.

This one is pretty key

So in the middle of the day or after work I take my laptop to a hammock on the porch and study on Anki just about every day. An hour and a half is usually my limit before my brain stops absorbing anything more, but with that much time I usually pick up about forty new words and phrases per day. I hope by the time I leave I'll have learned about two thousand items. And with any luck Anki will remain a part of my daily routine, so that I don't promptly forget most of I've learned, like I've done with French, Swedish and Japanese before. Just a little bit of review a day will keep all that knowledge fresh.

The drop in studies in the middle, that's Arenal's fault!

The only thing that's missing is something to deal with my greatest weakness: listening comprehension. When listening to others talking, if I don't understand everything they say fairly quickly or they go very slowly, I get lost pretty immediately. It's something I've had particular trouble with for every language I've studied. So I'm looking for some online service to help me with that, maybe something along the lines of SpanishPod or something that connects me with Spanish people on the internet I can practice talking with. That would probably be good.

Already though how much we've picked up has come in handy. Nick and I actually understand the prices of things when we go shop at the farmer's market on Saturdays. It's helped me converse with our groundskeeper, Gumerzindo, who knows less English than we do Spanish. And reading a newspaper is slowly becoming feasible. Not bad for about a couple months of work so far. Definitely worth the time and money.

One Backpack Is All You Need

I have become a major fan of traveling light, really light. No matter how long you're going, a week, a month, a year, a single medium sized backpack's worth of stuff is really all you need to be comfortable. This travel minimalism comes with lots of benefits, like the freedom to pick up and move quickly and easily, savings in time, effort and money, and really knowing what of your possessions are worth their weight in gold. They have to be if you want to bring them. No longer do you carry around things you might use one day, instead you only carry those things that you will use pretty much every day, and everything is of the absolute highest quality and smallest size possible, or that you can afford anyway.

And to be clear, minimalism does not equal asceticism. You're not foregoing all material pleasures, you're just getting 90% of the pleasures you want with 10% or less of the things you would need to satisfy the full 100%. It's all about maximizing value, getting the most out of what you have, and I think it's a great view to have at any time, traveling or no. It's about being able to recognize things things you don't use anymore or never used and being willing to part with them. It's about realizing that if you get rid of some (non sentimental) thing and it turns out you want it back, you can usually get it back or even a better version of it. All too often stuff is revered, and selling or getting rid of it really goes against our grain, but it shouldn't. Most of our stuff is just stuff, nothing more.

So what did I end up bringing with me to Costa Rica? Here's a short list of my current possessions:

• Clothes:
• 4 t-shirts
• 3 pairs of socks
• 3 pairs of underwear
• jacket w/hood
• sneakers
• swimming trunks
• convertable pants
• a belt 

• Electronics:
• laptop
• Wacom tablet
• iPhone
• travel phone
• wireless mouse
• Kindle
• headphones
• travel alarm clock
• small flashlight

• Misc:
• umbrella
• passport
• wallet
• earplugs
• eyecover
• water bottle
• a couple pens
• swimming goggles
• travel towel
• travel toiletries which fit into two small ziploc bags
• one normal sized everyday backpack to hold it all

This list (and indeed this whole minimalistic philosophy) was largely taken from Tynan's book Life Nomadic, and I'm pretty satisfied with it. There are ways that my list could be improved for the future, though, and most of it involves following Tynan's list even more than I already am.

For the clothing, I could stand to replace the cotton stuff. It's not great for travel, being relatively heavy and handles wet environments poorly, but Merino wool really fits the bill. I've been trying it out, purchased from Icebreaker, and it has not let me down so far. Also I am in no way prepared for freezing or really rainy weather, but I won't be running into that sort of thing for several more months so I'll worry about that when it happens.

The sneakers were not great for Costa Rica. I ruined my old ones, which were about ready to die anyway, and I don't think I'll keep the ones I bought here either. For hiking and rougher treatment, I might want to try Vibrams. They worked well for Nick despite their odd look, especially when climbing mountains or fording rivers; I wish I had had them for this trip.

Electronics could be improved too. My computer is a bit too big and heavy for travel and it overheats enough to make me worried about its long term stability, so I'm thinking of replacing it with something more powerful and lighter, ie something quite a bit more expensive. But the laptop is very key to being self-sufficient and central to most everything I do every day, so I will see if I can save the money up for that. The Kindle has been awesome, and the iPhone turned out to still be good to have around when it's relying on just wifi. All in all I'd rather use Google Voice or Skype on my laptop to make cheap or free calls home anyway. The iPhone is really just a handy handheld computer. Maybe an iTouch next time would be better to have, along with an unlocked Android phone for more flexibility while traveling.

Beyond that, I don't think I'm missing much. I could use a proper camera (see above iPhone photos); it was a real pleasure using the DSLR the three of us shared, but George got to keep that piece of equipment. I'll probably buy my own when I get back to the states. I've also found myself yearning for a proper set of 5.1 speakers, a piano to practice on, and a full set of cookware and spices, but those just would not be feasible with this kind of travel. Traveling in a car around the US, which I'm planning on doing next, will allow me to add some bigger things to my list of possessions, and will entail deciding what is worth bringing with me all over again. At least all my essentials fit in a backpack.

I hope I can bring my Celle though. That thing is awesome. Sorry Mom, as much as you like having it I am so taking it back.

I miss you so much. My back misses you especially.

Uvita Fauna #3

Okay one more animal post I think. I'm losing access to our all important camera tomorrow as George absconds with it for the rest of the stay here. Yeah, going to see an increase in iPhone photos for the next couple weeks.

Found this guy in the shower stall by our pool one evening. We stared at its enormity for a minute or two before Nick made a grab for it. We almost got away, but Nick was able to nab him before he hopped into the bushes. We then brought him in for his photo debut.

One day George and I were working in the house when we heard a loud bang at the glass door. We peered over and there was this little bird, flopping around on the ground very disoriented indeed. He arduously get himself upright, but still didn't seem quite right. He moved about strangely, his head tilting backward at one point much further than we thought possible, though perhaps birds just have a very flexible spine? Then he just sort of looked around, though didn't seem at all interested in leaving.

We came out the door, and George started nudging him with a broom. For some reason the bird was not flying away. Finally after some tougher nudging we got him to fly, only to watch him hit the ceiling of the porch and then somewhat oddly perch sideways on one of the support beams.

Got some pictures before he flew off (hitting the inside of the porch ceiling again on the way out). George and I agreed that something was odd about that bird; my guess is he was blinded. At least temporarily. He did not flee when we were literally right in front of him, and he had a bad tendency to fly into non-glass objects and perch on odd locations.

There's a stone table underneath our house, and there one day we discovered this fellow lounging about. He was fairly long, maybe a couple feet. Nick of course wanted to get real close and take some pictures of it, better than the ones George was doing, but of course all the rest of us told him not to under any circumstances. We had no idea if it was poisonous or not. Thankfully he slithered away from the house before Nick's irrational impulses landed him in the hospital. That man has to be watched at all times. Chloe I hope you know what you're getting into.

And that wasn't the only snake we saw, or at least not the only one I saw. One night prior to the run in with the green one, I was walking into town shining my flashlight in front of me and at oncoming cars to make sure they knew I was there. On a particularly dark patch of road I saw a red and black striped coral snake lying there, right in my way. It was smallish, only about a foot long, and it was facing away from me. I got as close as I dared, and got a good look at its coils before it slithered off the road into the grass. I decided to be doubly careful walking on the way back, especially on the dirt road to the house.

Later that night I was talking with a local, and he informed me that it could have been one of two snakes, one being entirely harmless, the other being highly poisonous though treatable. The only way to have been able to tell would have been to look at its stomach, which I hadn't seen. He said they're all pests around here and I should have killed it then identified it. I'll consider doing that next time I see one AND I have a machete or some very thick boots.

He also mentioned to look out for light brown snakes with a diamond pattern on the back, those things are very very lethal and basically untreatable; you get bit by one and you die. I saw one of those on the way back home, though in a roadkill condition. Further reason to be careful when walking around in the grass and at night!

Lastly, it turns out this place has got a couple toucans nearby. One day while I was studying some Spanish on the porch, I spotted one then two toucans hanging out in a tree right next to our house. Nick and I watched them for a little while, flying from limb to limb and randomly tapping the branches with their big beaks. We commented about how we were really craving Fruit Loops and then returned to our work.

Then later on that day I started hearing some very familiar and very loud bird calls. I walked back outside and confirmed my suspicion that it was one of the toucans making the racket right outside our house. Aha! So that's what's been waking us up in the early morning hours, them and the cicadas. And now we know. Toucans are noisy and like to begin the day at dawn.

Post Arenal: It's Good to Know Alonzo

We spent the last two nights of our trip in Alajuela, a city not too far from San Jose and close to the airport. When we arrived we were not exactly sure where we would spend the night. George's parents had spent their first night in Costa Rica in a hostel run by local named Alonzo. They had messaged him asking if we all could stay over, but had gotten no response. We figured at worst we could just stay at one of the many perfectly good hostels around town. Pura vida!

When we arrived, Alonzo informed us that unfortunately his place was full at the moment. He was already hosting other tourists, but he could hook us up with someone else who did have room at a place called the Hotel Villa Bonita, and for the same price. He put in the necessary phone calls and then we all talked for a bit on the street about our plans to see the Poás Volcano the following day. Alonzo was informing us of a great place to have lunch on the way back when his friend Aaron arrived to fetch us. We bid Alonzo goodbye and then followed Aaron to the new location.

After following a twisty path through the streets, we drove through a large white gate and parked in front of a grand building nestled into the side of a mountain. Villa Bonita was very nice indeed, with a spacious central area and a front porch which offered a grandiose view of the city of San Jose down below, which glittered and shone brightly in the night. Turned out we would be staying in a fairly posh hotel. And we were getting it for $15 per person per night. We enjoyed our good fortune, ate some dinner and went to sleep in our comfortable rooms.

We decided it was good to know Alonzo.

Pretty sweet place

In the morning after breakfast we had our excursion to the Poás Volcano National Park. At first it was underwhelming; the volcano was mostly covered in clouds as are pretty much all high things in Costa Rica it seems, and the ease of getting there by a flat paved road disappointed Nick and George who are always jonesing for a challenging hike.

The volcano's highly acidic and cloudy lake.

Meh

On our way back to the parking lot we decided to take another path that went into the forest. This we agreed was much more satisfying, as it was narrow, had a good amount of climbing, and the dark, thick forest itself had nice character. George said it reminded him of Middle Earth's Mirkwood, while Sherri was thinking more along the lines of the forest of Grimm fairy tales.

Which fantasy forest is this?

Satisfied with our find we headed back to our hotel. On the way back we stopped at the restaurant Alonzo had recommended. It was run entirely by a woman named Regina and she made us all sorts of great casados there (a popular dish in Costa Rica involving beans and rice). As promised, the food was terrific and we topped it off by buying a big cheap bag of strawberries nearby.

We decided to take it easy and relax at the hotel for the rest of the day, having had an eventful week. Nick, George and I set up our laptops on the porch outside, plugged in our internet sticks and did some much needed emailing for our business for a while.

Time to work!

In the evening Nick went to the airport to pick up Chloe who was visiting for a week. Nick had considered taking the bus or a taxi, but Aaron came in and offered to drive him there himself, and Nick accepted. On the way there, Nick tried to pay Aaron $40 for the ride, which was close to what he would have had to pay to a taxi, but Aaron wouldn't accept it, even to pay for the parking at the airport! Eventually Nick managed to convince him to accept the payment, but only on the condition that it would also cover Chloe's stay that evening. He's a hard bargainer.

The hotel kept doing this throughout our stay really, giving us ridiculous value for what we paid them. I was given coffee while I was working that afternoon, no extra cost. We got free tasty breakfasts each of the mornings we were there. The staff was great and very helpful. And the place itself just looked all around awesome. We spent a fair amount of time during our stay trying to figure out how in the world it could be profitable. It didn't make any sense, until we finally figured out the real price was about five times higher than we had paid; we had gotten a very special deal.

It's good to know Alonzo.

Arenal: Part 3

On the third day of our Arenal stay, Nick, Steve and I woke up early to do our final hike. George had had enough of hiking through the rainy rainforest, and Sherri was not interested in the intense climb that was promised. We three, though, were going precisely for that challenge, and we would not leave until we had it. As we drove out the sky was mostly clear for the first time, though of course Arenal was cloud covered still, its peak hidden from us as it had been throughout our stay. Never mind that volcano though, today we were climbing its truly dormant neighbor, Cerro Chato.

We drove up to the information center and headed in to buy our tickets. The man behind the desk had us give him emergency contact info, advised us that the end of the trail was 'very, very difficult', made sure we were bringing plenty of water and mentioned that we should be careful where we stepped, as snakes were sometimes on the trail. This was looking good.

The trail was fairly steep from the very start. We began by climbing up farmland, up a well gardened path with open fields on either side, passing two workers with boisterous weed whackers tending the grass. As we climbed, we got some great views of the farmland and the city of La Fortuna below. We also craned our necks upward at the peak of Cerro Chato, which like its sibling Arenal was topped with clouds. We wondered if the cloudless sky foretold a clear sky over the mountain, but we knew this was unlikely. Nevermind, the climb is what we were there for.

We have only begun to climb

Then, very suddenly, the farmland turned into thick, dark, misty forest. We had entered the national park part of the dormant volcano, and it was a world of difference. Suddenly the path consisted mostly of climbing up tree roots and artificial wooden steps, with not a single flat or nearly flat length of trail. There was very little winding either; this trail was unabashedly straight up the volcano, no fooling around. We pulled ourselves up using the trunks of moss covered trees, pushing up on our knees and being careful not to lose our footing on the mud. We took comfort in the knowledge that no raucous ATV could possibly follow us up there.

A very steep climb. Go ahead ATVs, give it your best shot

While we did not find any deadly poisonous snakes on our way up, we did pick up a little reptilian hitchhiker. Nick with his eagle eye spotted a very well camouflaged lizard on a tree, and deftly picked it up for a picture or two. Having gotten a good number of shots of it with the camera, we placed it on Steve's shirt where it resided on his shoulder like an epaulette. We got him to stay with us until after a while he jumped off onto another tree, probably having gotten tired of the bumpy ride.

Oh hi lizard

After some very intense climbing the path abruptly went right back down, steeper than on the way up. We had reached the top of the volcano, and now it was time to check out the inside. Carefully making our way down we shortly reached the center of the crater, all lined with trees and containing a big lake in the middle. Nick and I stripped to our bathing suits and slowly walked into the freezing water, looking up for some sign of a warm sun but the clouds were still there for the most part. Nonetheless he and I (I after being egged on a bit by the other two) submerged ourselves into the water and swam around, feeling energized while Steve stayed on the shore and caught all the action on camera. A couple laps later, we swam to shore and put back our clothes on, shook ourselves a bit warmer, and started to climb back out of the volcano as it was time to head out.

Nick recalls what it's like to be cold

Getting back down was a whole lot faster. We rapidly made our way down the side of the volcano, jumping over the roots and sliding down the mud. We passed several tourists, who to our bemusement had only climbed up the volcano and were already heading back down, having not gone in to see the center! We were told they didn't have enough time, as they were part of a bus of German tourists and it would be leaving shortly. We felt sorry for them, since they missed out on getting to see the lake and clouds rolling above it, but such is the downside of relying on fixed tours.

Scaling volcanoes is hungry work

It was midday when we drove back into the hostel to pick up George and Sherri for the ride back to San Jose. We gathered our things, sorted our laundry and paid our outstanding debts. As we were packing up the car, we noticed a row of photographers on the lawn of the hostel. We looked up and finally saw the top of Arenal, the first time the clouds had parted above that volcano since we had arrived. We lined up with the other photographers and got our own pictures of the good view before we drove off, heading back south.

Finally!