Cooking: Memorial Day BBQ for One
Happy Mew-More-Y'all Day!

It being a week before I go on a trip to Italy with [Bad username: dracosphynx.livejournal.com], I regretfully decided against going to one of the cons in the area or friends' BBQs - last thing I want is to be battling sickness while on the plane! So I cooked myself some BBQ-ish food.

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I has shed my wynter fluff!
I got a haircut back in the fall but six months later, my hair has grown out a bit uncomfily long so I figured I'd better get it cut short again, in time for my upcoming trip.

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Food Catchup: Kung Pao Chicken Tacos, Chorizo Fried Rice, and Meatloaf
After a friend posted on Twitter about General Tso's chicken burritos and other acts of Chinese-Mexican fusion cuisine, I thought I'd give it a try...

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San Francisco Japantown: Cherry Blossom Festival 2017
The other week, [Bad username: dracosphynx.livejournal.com] dragged me up to the San Francisco Japantown for their 50th Cherry Blossom Festival. Whee! It was fun, though at this point we both know pretty much what to expect.

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Google Popups and Food: Crittenden and Tech Corners
A thing that the Google catering team does is to have "pop-up" community events at various campuses. These typically feature a large number of "social" venues like tents and sofas, a stage and speakers for live performances, and of course... food!

My team recently moved from Mountain View to Sunnyvale. As if to bid us farewell, they had a pop-up at Crittenden!

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Random cooking notes to myself
* Bake bacon in oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, not 20. 20 gives you almost charcoal.
* Bake Trader Joe's Apple Blooms at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, not 350 degrees at 15. It's still icy in the middle otherwise.
* After boiling ramen noodles, bake them at 400 degrees for 50 minutes, shaped in individual portion discs or squares, for making delicious "pan-fried" noodle stirfries.
* Make microwave popcorn easily: 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels at 2:30 minutes in the microwave in a safe bowl with cover, with 2 teaspoons of ghee or butter-flavored olive oil and a dash of salt mixed in.

Feel free to pop any cooking questions you have but I don't guarantee to know the answers. -_-

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Food Catchup: Impossible Burger, Zucchini Noodles, and Other Things
Let me lead off with the one you're probably going to find the most interesting: science has perfected a vegetarian burger that looks and tastes very much like the real thing! This is the Impossible Burger. Unfortunately it's only available at a handful of restaurants, and apparently not yet commercially purchasable.

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On Snark
So, I've been watching "Person of Interest" at dracosphynx's behest. "All the characters have extra points in snark," he explained to me.

"I should try to practice writing characters with snark," I thought to myself in the shower.

Jason Carter popped into my head, dressed as the Ranger Marcus Cole from Babylon 5. I have no idea why it wasn't Jim Carrey or Jackie Chan. My subconscious works in mysterious ways. "What, you want me to say something snarky?" he asked.

"Well, yes."

"I'm sorry, but have you heard of the pink elephant thing? Well, this is just the opposite of that." Jason looked terribly earnest, as he does so very well.

"How so?"

"The minute you asked me to say something snarky, everything funny and comedic immediately fled my mind. It is a wasteland of wit. A desert of--"

"I get it already, thanks for trying, Jason."

"Thanks, I was going spare trying to think of a synonym for humor that began with D." He flashed his trademark grin and vanished.

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Food Catchup, Featuring Ersatz Okonomiyaki and Bacon Cheeseburgers
Time to catch up on food pictures I've taken on my phone but haven't uploaded immediately for various reasons!

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Moving to Dreamwidth!
You can find my entries at Dreamwidth meow. Since LJ has completely moved to Russia, well... I didn't have anything particularly secret here but I do have a certain wariness.

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Meowy Kitsmas, y'all!
Felis Navycat and a Happy Mew Purr. ^_^

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More Food I Didn't Cook: Dynasty, Bushido, and Yayoi
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Google Life: Halloween 2016
It's been over a month so... yeah. Time to do another round of uploading photographs! Here we have the Googleween 2016 pics. This year the theme was games! Both video games and board games.

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Odds and Ends: Stuffed Lynx, New Haircut
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Mountain View Arts & Wine Fair 2016
"Wait, Tuftears, didn't you do one of these already?"

"Yes, but that was the Arts and *Crafts* fair. This is the Arts and *Wine* fair."

"So what's the difference?"

"Not a lot, this one's toward the end of the summer, but otherwise pretty much the same thing. A long stretch of booths allll the way from Central to El Camino Real."

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Google Life: the 'Pop-Up' at Crittenden
The last event of the summer that I noted was this 'pop-up' -- basically a lot of chairs and "socially friendly" settings appeared on the grass in the middle of the campus, and there were tables serving up various snacks. Not a huge event, but it was nice. Hope they do this sort of thing more often!

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Food Catchup: Yayoi's Beef Sukiyaki and Cafe Venetia's Chocolate Cake
The other weekend, dracosphynx mentioned wanting to go to an interesting Japanese restaurant up in my area. Not having gotten out in a while, I importuned him to let me come along, and he was kind enough to oblige. So...

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Cooking Catchup: Turkey Meatloaf (x2), Sweet Pepper Jelly Chicken, Mexican Lasagna, Fresh Pineapple
I've been distracted with Legion, WoW's latest expansion, but I've been catching up with various things-- bills, mail-in ballot voting-- and now it's time to catch up on photos! So here, have some pics of food.

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Tufty Outings: CrittFest 2016, Mountain View Center for Performing Arts 25th Anniversary
I have actually gotten out into the Big Bloo Room twice this week! Amazing.

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Gasp, Tufty Went Outside: Thursday Night Live on Castro Street
The previous year that Mountain View has tried doing a 'Thursday Night Live' in the summer, I wasn't able to make it-- their dates fell inconveniently on raid nights. This time raiding wrapped up more or less in time for me to be able to make the last Thursday Night Live. So, photographic proof that I went voluntarily into the Big Bloo Room without dracosphynx pushing me!

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