If you have remodeling resources you like, please do share!

Organizations

I have a habit of checking Angie’s List and Diamond Certified when looking for a contractor, as well as other types of services. Then I double-check to see what comes up with web searches and Yelp.com. When possible, I also speak with friends and neighbors.

Angie’s List. Think of this as a non-free version of Yelp.com, but with moderation — this means they always review submissions before posting, which helps reduce trolling and asinine reports. While some highly rated companies offer discounts (nice), they do NOT pay to be listed (even nicer). This is obviously to emphasize Angie’s List’s consumer advocacy stance, as well as avoid conflicts of interest. They also offer some services as part of the paid membership, including a complaint resolution process.

Diamond Certified. They review services covering Bay Area counties. Take note that unlike Angie’s List, Diamond Certified requires vendors to pay to be reviewed. Also note that even if after a vendor has paid, it does not guarantee listing as being certified: that’s where their stringent rules come into play, e.g., requiring a standing 90% positive approval rating from surveyed clients. FYI: Many of the vendors seem to fall in the middle to high-range, in terms of price.

California State License boards for contractors (CSLB) and architects (CAB). Check these sites to ensure that licensing for your contractors or architect is up to date — before you pay for any of their services! Contractor entries also include bonding, insurance and workers’ compensation information, which should all be up to date.

For green building information, check out Built It Green (BIG), who provide detailed guidelines for green construction and remodeling in California. There’s also the federally run US Green Building Council (USGBC).

On a related note, regarding energy efficiency and solar installation:

• Title 24, a.k.a., the California Energy Efficiency Standards for Buildings. Also, the Home Energy Rating System (HERS) program.
• Tax Incentives Assistance Project, for federal income tax breaks for energy efficient products and services.
• Go Solar California! which covers the California Solar Initiative (CSI).
• If you have utilities from PG&E, check out their pages on residential solar energy and how they work with the CSI.

There are several national professional associations to which a contractor or designer may belong. For example, the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI), and their Silicon Valley Chapter. There is also the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) for those who specialize in such structures. Depending on the scope of your project, a prospective contractor or designer might be in either or both of those groups.

In addition, you can search for professionals certified by these associations:

• Silicon Valley NARI Member Directory
• NKBA Find a Professional by zipcode
• Build It Green Professional Directory

Books

Make use of your local library! If you have your own copier, gathering visual ideas becomes an easier, less costly task. I learned from the bathroom remodel that it’s better to just make copies of images you like, and spend money on reference-like guides with more explanatory text.

Speaking of which:

• Johnston, Amy. What Your Contractor Can’t Tell You: The Essential Guide to Building and Renovating (2008). The author’s perspective is primarily focused on large construction projects, so it’s better to pick and choose which tips better suit your situation. For example, she seems to interview and use architects first, and interview contractors late in the game — very different from what we’re doing. The book is more on project management, financial and legal issues, rather than materials and design styles. Has excellent examples of questions you should ask when interviewing contractors and designers (again for Johnston, it’s typically architects, but similar questions apply).
• Peterson, Lyn. Lyn Peterson’s Real Life Kitchens (2007). A good guide to working out what you need (and don’t need) in kitchen design, from layout to materials.
• Ruiz, Fernando Pagés. Affordable Remodel: How to Get Custom Results on Any Budget (2007). A great book on how to choose particular tasks and materials, in order to stay within your budget.
• Susanka, Sarah and Vassallo, Marc. Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring Your Home for the Way You Really Live (2009). Many praise Susanka’s Not So Big House, which when skimmed through before our bathroom remodel, I found to be useless. The houses featured were still too damn BIG (compared to our own), and the projects focused primarily on rebuilding or whole house renovation. However, this new book on remodeling actually fills the gap I seek, and contains some good ideas on space arrangement in a small home.

The Taunton Press publishes tons of books with great visual ideas and nicely arranged photographs. They do update books within their Ideas series every few years; and because that series has a more a picture book feel rather than reference, those books tend to lack indices.

• The bloody backroom. Which means foundation work. Rapture!
• The outdated kitchen, which is not only attached to the bloody backroom, but has the ever common complaint of too little counter space in a crappily arranged area.
• Adding another bathroom. I don’t care what other people say, if there is more than 1 person living in a building, you need more than 1 bathroom.
• Removing the unused, space-hogging chimney. Don’t need it, don’t want it, get rid of it.
• A new roof. Something more energy-efficient, long-lasting, less prone to damage, yet easy to repair if needed. I hear lifetime composite might be in my future.
• A companion for the roof, along with the dream of (some) renewable energy production: solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. At the very least, have a roof well-constructed to take solar in the future, if we cannot do it during this project.
• Central heating, maybe. Did I mention that this house is old enough to lack central heating? It still does.
• Electrical upgrades, as well as fixes to obsolete wiring in which past electricians had failed.
• Too many new appliances.
• Sound-proofing, where feasible.
• Exterior paint. I grow weary of off-white. Death to beige!
• Doing the above in as green a manner as possible, where affordable.
• A dragon. Why ask for a pony when a dragon more appropriately suits one’s needs? Especially a fire-beathing one who’ll intimidate those who might damage our precious garden without a care in the world.

That’s the short list. Obviously, this will grow (and shrink) as we get a better idea of realistic scope and budget.

With a project of this scope, most people would start with an architect they like, work to get designs and plans, then get bids from contractors. Well, we don’t know any architects, at least of the residential and remodeling design variety. And since we’ve gotten used to screening and dealing with contractors — you know, the ones who will actually be doing the demolition and construction work — we thought we’d take an alternative and more modern route, and seek out design+build firms. Design+build companies include both the design (architectural, structural engineering, where needed) and construction aspects. Ideally.

So, with a list in hand, I finally emailed 9 prospective design+build companies. To my surprise, within less than a week, I got 7 responses. Two never responded; their loss. Of these, we decided one was located too far for us to comfortably do business with, and another seemed more focused on whole house remodeling — far too big a scope, likely far too time-consuming and too costly. So, we scheduled initial consultations (free) with 5 of them.

Suffice it to say, after speaking with these designers and contractors, executing the Big, Scary Remodel would not be as clear-cut as we had thought. But hey, that’s part of the learning process of this project. But we did learn that we might be able to accomplish most (maybe all, but I’m cautious) of the list within our budget. A little hope now is better than the hopelessness we’ve felt while waffling over this for the past nine years.

One lesson, subject to change, is to pay for the set of plans (i.e., the detailed design, which in itself is a non-trivial amount of labor) once, but get detailed bids for materials and demolition-construction labor from multiple sources. That way we can compare how much the same project would cost, both financially and time-wise. And hopefully we won’t need to pay (again, other than the single design cost) until we agree to work with a specific contractor. We’ll see.

Another lesson, in addition to the reality that detailed design plans must come before detailed bids, is learning about architectural requirements. Unless you’re building a second (or more) storey, or something underground like a basement, you don’t need a licensed architect — at least in the Bay Area, if not in California. A residential designer should suffice; if structural engineering work is needed, then that designer should work with one to get things to code. Note also that the residential designer should at least get the plans within City and State building codes.

The next step: Figuring out the design. During our bathroom remodel, the design phase took nearly half a year, whereas the construction a mere 3ish weeks. Being the schedule pessimist that I am, I imagine that design phase for this project could take a loooooong time. But this isn’t our first remodeling project, so we’ve got some experience, as well as a better idea as to what we’d want and not want. Again, we’ll see.

Nevertheless, the spring wildflowers are coming to an end — but they’re going out with a blast of Clarkia! There are very few of the Showy Farewell to Spring (Clarkia bottae), the pale pink ones with white centers which I often see in the foothills.

The most populous flowers overall are the Elegant Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata), which come in a wild range — from deep magenta to salmon to carnation pink to nearly white. I’m amused that different colored flowers seem to come off of the same plant, too.

Note the magenta-ish one sprouting on the upper-right of an otherwise pink stemfull of flowers.

There’s yet another set of Clarkia blooming as well — also called Farewell to Spring (Clarkia amoena), but showier than the Showy one. Like the Elegant one, this comes in several colors, such as red with white splotches, white with hot-pink splotches, pink with red splotches, etc. All with a rather floppy poppy-like form.

True to their name, these flowers herald the conclusion of the annual wildflower season in our garden, even though there are some Mountain Phlox and Calpops making an appearance. While it’s sad to see them go, summer will soon bring forth fruit, veggies and the (continuation of more) perennial flowers.

Anyhow, as April progresses, more and more flowers are popping up in the backyard. While the fivespot remains comparatively shy, I’ve seen over half a dozen individual plants. Whoa.

The fivespots seem to prefer sunny borders. Field view of a mound (single plant).

In my last entry, I forgot to mention that vast majority of the wildflowers are these tall, reddish-veined dudes with succulent stems. Lots and lots. Yet no flowers, failing to help in identification. I got my answer this past weekend during the Going Native Garden Tour: Clarkia unguiculata (formerly Clarkia elegans), also called Mountain Garland or Elegant Clarkia. (It’s a Clarkia, which would make Samuel proud. Moreover, these guys are ¡muy hardy! to the point of outcompeting many weeds. I think I’ve found a solution for the stubborn parking strip.

But since the Clarkia haven’t opened up yet, I’ll offer some Bird’s-Eyes Gilia (Gilia tricolor).

The first ones to bloom, the many baby blue-eyes, are petering out. But now we also have a bunch of composites opening up, mostly tidy tips and tarweed.

Tidy tips.

The seed mixes also included a couple lupines, but they seem few and far between. Perhaps our soil isn’t nitrogen poor enough? I guess that’s something good in many other ways, though!

But the point of today’s post is to record the first results of the wildflower seeds Simon sowed in the backyard at the end of December. I had went wild and bought several annual mixes from Larner Seeds, who specialize in native Californian plants.

So just a few days ago, I saw some quarter sized blue things bobbing in the wind: Baby Blue-eyes (Nemophila menziesii)!

Today, I saw a cousin of the Baby Blue-eyes, the Fivespot (Nemophila maculata). I’ve occasionally seen these while hiking in the hills, but never had luck — except one specimen in the parking strip several years ago — growing them at home. Perhaps they prefer the backyard over the frontyard; then again, I’ve seen only one plant so far.

Both of these Nemophila have been recently relegated to the Hydrophylloideae subfamily of the large Boraginaceae (borage) family, rather than the former Hydrophyllaceae. I’ve labeled the photo album containing bigger images in the old way, because it helps me remember that these small geranium-like plants are not geraniums (nor borage).

Returning to the fruit trees, I finally photographed the apple blossoms. Well, one of them, the Braeburn, which has such lovely red-tipped buds. Open flowers certainly are useful (for the bees and other arthropod friends), but I’m so very impartial towards the demurely tight-lipped state of closed buds. The first three photos in this album show them in greater detail.

However, I was pleasantly satisfied with several tools and goodies I managed to find.

I had written up a list of Things to Look For in Evernote, even tagged the note as an offline favorite — because one shouldn’t depend on any network access in an underground convention. Unfortunately, a hitch arose that prevented me from initially viewing offline data in Evernote; luckily, the free conference WiFi helped out with note access. Dear Evernote: Isn’t the point of offline favorites to allow access without network connectivity? A forum thread shows how others also experience this issue, which currently remains unsolved.

FireWire to USB adapter for car stereo. I bought the passPORT charging adapter from Scosche for $25. (That was a Macworld promotion price; the list price is $29.99, but you can prolly find it online for less.) Oddly enough, they seemed to be the only vendor who had that particular adapter, AFAICT. Neither Griffin nor Macally had a similar gizmo.

Trackballs? My annual visit to Kensington revealed that they have yet to update their Macintosh drivers: not since July 2007 for the SlimBlade (which failed to work for me), and not since May 2006 for MouseWorks (which hogs system resources and behaves erratically, at least with Tiger). The booth attendant didn’t know if or when there’d be any updates. Another exhibitor, Contour Designs showed me their RollerMouse, a peculiar wrist rest containing a long, rotating rod that behaved like a trackball. I’m not sure how well such a setup would work, compared with the mouse-like, to-the-side-of-the-keyboard peripherals I had used in the past.

Etymotic Research continue to be incredibly helpful and interesting. First, they still offer many types of eartips to fit many kinds of ears. For example, the new grey foam “mushrooms” are too short for my ears, but the narrower 3-flange translucent rubber tips (which come in grey and blue) might be more comfortable enough to oust my favored opaque white 3-flange tips. Second, I got a hands-on demonstration of the Bluetooth headset, and was impressed with how well it blocked out background noise. Third, if and when my trusty HR-6isolator earphones poop out on me, the newer hf5 model would be a fine replacement.

GelaSkins manufacture skin-thin device covers for mobiles, laptops and game consoles. These are not the terrifying plastic wrappers encasing your parents’ furniture. GelaSkins offer a huge selection of artwork, with quality production which doesn’t scream, “Hey! Look at all the dithering dots!” Moreover, they are removable, like window decals without any adhesive gunk. The promotional code for Macworld is MACWORLD09, for 10% off online orders, though I’m not sure how long that sale will last. However, they seem to have a buy-3-get-1-free offer for iPhones on a regular basis. Update, from the More Goodies Dept.: They also offer free wallpapers for various handhelds, including the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Stylus for iPhone. The Pogo capacitive stylus was far too short and light for me. I’d prefer a bit more heft, and this thingie was lighter than a cheap ballpoint pen. If you check out the product page link, you’ll notice the tip is covered with what looks like a loose foamy material. Won’t that wear away after a few days of use? I think I’ll stick with my fingers, even if my iPhone doesn’t respond as well when my hands are too cold and dry. Maybe I’ll find gloves with those pokey dots — which come in my teensy size.

Gadget holder for the preoccupied. After searching for years, I happened upon In Your Face, who make a device holder that can attach to a bike handle. Finally! I’d use this on my stationary trainer, since one shouldn’t ride around with headphones, obviously. The Viewbase holder lists for $29.95, available only as an online purchase. But at Macworld they provided a coupon code of 5115 for $10 off, good until 31 December 2009.

Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. I wouldn’t have much use for this because I rarely write by hand. But for anyone taking a class? I definitely see the wow factor: the Smartpen looks virtually indispensable with how it links audio transcription with handwriting. Livescribe’s system doesn’t have true OCR (IIRC), their Macintosh support is behind Windows development, the charging contacts on the Smartpen lean against the skin, and you need special paper (which can be printed out, though) — but it sounds like a project with great potential.

WENK. Wenk wenk wenk!

Now I have proof: young Western Scrub Jay bossing over backyard fig tree! Okay, only indirect proof, since none of the pictures actually showed the bird’s beak snorfing in the fruit. Though I certainly do see a lot of that. When looking through the lens I must’ve had the anthropomorphic desire (bad habit?) for the bird to look at me, rather than stuff its face.

Things of course get louder when a mockingbird comes over to eye the figs. Along with another adult jay (with an acorn in its mouth), yelling at the young one. “Hey! Stop with the fruit fast food, and help out with the food storage chores!”

Since I’m not huge fig fan, this fruit loss doesn’t disappoint me much. I view it more as end of summer avian entertainment.

For the botanically inclined, I submit vegetable porn involving burgundy and green filet beans. Basically haricots verts / violet, but Californian. Bush beans of the Maxibel and Royal Burgundy varieties, if ya wanna get technical.

Royal Burgundy bush beans.

Oddly enough, after cooking the purple filet beans, they turn a green color to match the haricots verts.

I obtained some Texas tomato cages in hopes to control the tomatoes. The rectangular folding cages used in the past often buckled and nearly collapsed halfway through the season. This year we planted Stupice, Big Rainbow and Early Girl. I learned after several seasons that the best Early Girl fruits come from the indeterminate variety, instead of the bush-style or determinate variety. For some odd reason, the more compact Early Girls lack the flavor and vigor of the crazily sprawling one. In any case, I see many flowers on the three plants, and a few green fruits, so I imagine the tomatoes will ripen by next month or so.

On an impulse, I decided to plant some green and red shiso. Copious amounts of leaves! I wonder how I’ll use them. Shiso’s aroma is a combination of mint, anise and pepper, which is sharp when fresh, but becomes more subtle when fried. They’re okay in Vietnamese salad rolls, but I prefer their flavor in deep-fried dishes, which we typically order at Japanese restos. But we very rarely deep fry food at home… Hmm, anyone want some? Or have some good recipes?

Then there are the birds, which sometimes I now address as “damn birds.” First, there was the Crow Incident, involving a neighborhood cat nearly capturing a young crow in the backyard. (The feline leapt nearly a meter into the air, but failed to capture anyone.) Corvids, charmingly clever beasts in general, seem to be particularly protective of their young. So as this young one cried (insert loud, desperate cawing), many, many crows arrived into our yard, to yell at the cat and us —even though we chased off the cat. (Reminds me of the crows in Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, where they cried “Egg stealer!” (conveniently and ironically translated by Jiji, the black cat familiar) at Kiki as she accidentally fell into their nesting tree.) The young one survived, thankfully. But for good measure, it (or one of its vigilant parents) visited the backyard for a couple weeks to yell and dive (fortunately not close enough for contact) at me. Things seem to have mellowed out now, either due to the young crow growing up and out of the neighborhood, or because of the typically non-elephantine memories of avians.

The young crow escaped into a neighbor’s plum tree, then beyond.

And secondly, those brash Mockingbirds. They ended up nesting some place other than the honeysuckle bush. But now they’re performing their summertime relationship-affirming concerts, which involves touring the neighborhood, they shall have you know, especially localities containing aromatic flowers and fruiting trees. This production begins before dawn, tapers off around midday, then picks up again around dusk. The “before dawn” aspect interferes with the human sleeping habits. (Silly humans, so little appreciation for outdoor music at high volume and high places.) I do admit, however, that the songs remain enchanting. I just wish I were more of a morning person.

A rather short list of restaurants considered as enjoyable as rotting liver (2)

Hobee’s, throughout the Bay Area. One of the first things that pop into my head about Hobee’s is how much I hate the smell of their cinnamon tea, filling the rooms like nasty scented candles. The next thing that follows is how bored I get of their food, and how aggravating it is to stand and wait wait wait for a table of their uninspired food. A childhood and adulthood filled with Hobee’s, because that’s one of the few places both family and friends wanted to go. Over and over. Hobee’s doesn’t serve bad food, and they have admirable community-oriented standards. But I am not a morning person, and unless the food of the day’s first meal is remarkable in quality (or offers unusually interesting items like popovers or crêpes), I am loath to go out for breakfast or brunch.

Hunan Home, Los Altos. I just couldn’t find anything to enjoy eating here. Want another stir-fry disappointment over rice? No, thanks. In spite of being a Silicon Valley favorite, a place like this emphasizes how uninspired Chinese food could become. There are better Chinese eateries! (Try Café Yulong, Ming’s, Yank Sing, or even Chef Chu’s down the road.)

Il Postale, Sunnyvale. A downtown district ought to have at least a couple good restaurants. It saddens me that there are no decent Italian restaurants in downtown Sunnyvale. Gumba’s is mediocre, but at least the cost is low. Il Postale, however, truly frustrates. For an upscale place, their risotto and pasta were uninspired and felt like a chore to consume. The clincher for loser status was their bread: “Italian” bread whose flavor and texture reminded me of WonderBread. It turned out that the bread came from Wilson’s Jewel Bakery, a place whose cakes I found worse than Safeway’s. (For a place that failed at making either bread and cake, I shed no tears for Wilson’s closure.)

Suraj, Redwood City. Somehow the ingredients appear…old and stale. And I’ve gone there several times over the last decade. The chicken dishes frightened me, often tasting rancid. There are better Indian places: Dasaprakash, Shiva’s, etc….even the erratic service nightmare at Saravana Bhavan yields much superior comestables. Really. Let’s go somewhere else, please.

I generally don’t frequent chain restaurants. That is, defining those as part of a big corporate conglomerate (e.g., the Pizza Hut / Taco Bell / McDonald’s consumption mills). However, a few do stand out as vomitoria (3):

• The Olive Garden. Nastily salty food. Dishes described as vegetarian containing obvious lumps of meat. Slow service. True, I went here only once; but it was enough. This chain is an embarrassment to decent Italian restaurants (and home cooked meals of pasta and pizza) everywhere.
• Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. When Japanese food franchises go wrong. This one gets the prize for most nauseating appearance, smell and taste.
• The Cheesecake Factory. The odd bit was my first time at the Old Pasadena location: The wait was long (reservations not accepted), but the food wasn’t half bad. But since then, visits to the Cheesecake Factory have epitomized the travesty that is over-sweetened, cowardly blandified, obscenely huge servings of American cuisine (4). For example, they take a simple Southeast Asian dish such as salad rolls, and manage to render it unpalatable. They can’t even do cheesecake right. Their asinine no-reservation policy (unless that’s changed recently) doesn’t improve their image in my eyes, either.

References

1. Don’t take the above as aspersions on your tastes, of course. Opinions are good: After all, how would we find more and interesting things to eat? (Unless one dislikes food. Pity them.)
2. For the curious, much of this article originated from a restaurant list I had on my old website (circa 1998).
3. Not in the (misconceived!) ancient Roman “eat and party to exhaustion” sense. Rather, in the “Wow, I wasted my time, money and now I feel rather sick to my stomach” sense.
4. Obviously, not all American cooking falls under the OSCBOHS label. Much of it doesn’t, thankfully.

• Injera, a teff based flatbread that’s sour, spongey and soft.
• A good collection of vegetarian dishes, such as kik alicha (yellow split peas), atakilt wot (stewed cabbage, potatoes and carrots), gomen wot (sautéed collard greens), and my favorite…
• …Yemisir wot, brown lentils simmered in a fiery red sauce!
• Yedoro tibs, chopped chicken (usually deboned) cooked into a rich, spicy red stew. Sometimes I’ll have a similar dish, doro wot, chicken on the bone stewed with whole hard-boiled eggs.
• Asa tibs or asa wot (fish stew), or shrimp tibs. Tricky to find a good version, if at all.
• Tej, a honey wine, often homemade or locally produced.
• Iyeb, homemade fresh cheese, reminiscent of a tart ricotta cheese.
• Tea, Ethiopian style, made with a spiced water.

Long waits seem to be an attribute universal to Ethiopian restaurants. Take it as an opportunity to exercise one’s conversational skills with one’s companions. Several places do take away, so perhaps I’ll call ahead to take a meal home, one of these days.

Two restaurants succeed in more respects than others: Zeni and Rehoboth, both located in San José. (Neither serve any seafood, though.)

Rehoboth. While scrumptious, the food here is milder than at other Ethiopian establishments. In fact, I wish they would be, I dunno, less shy or sheepish with the spices. But the waitstaff are warm and personable; this includes the owner, a sweet lady who alternates between cooking in the kitchen and waiting on us. Reservations are also taken, regardless of party size. The yemisir wot is earthier and smokier than Zeni’s. The yedoro tibs differs somewhat, too: more liquidy, more succulent, and with stunningly delicious savoriness. The kik alicha are more flavorful here, as is the gomen wot, which is less bitter and more palatable than at other places. No alcohol (as of this writing), so no tej to try. I enjoy how tea is served in a pot when 2 or more people order it. Occasionally the injera arrives slightly toasted, which I feel detracts from the soft texture; but that doesn’t happen too often. Metroactive review | Yelp reviews. Closed Monday.

Zeni. Spicier food than Rehoboth. The services is a bit more chaotic, but mostly friendly. Reservations aren’t accepted for parties of less than 6 or 8 people, and none are accepted at all on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. They have a wider menu, including sambussa, an Ethiopian analog to samosa, pastries filled with a mild mix of lentils and onions. Their addictive yemisir wot is sweeter and hotter than Rehoboth’s. The spicing in their yedoro tibs makes my mouth buzz and ring with delight. This is the only place where I’ve had doro kitfo made of finely minced chicken (kitfo is usually rare or raw beef mixed with spices); it sounds ingenious, and it might’ve turned out well if it weren’t so salty. Metroactive review | Yelp reviews. Closed Monday.

Other local Ethiopian restaurants

Blue Nile. Berkeley, CA. CLOSED. This was where I first experienced Ethiopian food and wine. While I have fond memories of this now defunct restaurant, I must admit that it was thoroughly Americanized. Their injera was made primarily of white wheat flour, and completely lacked teff (AFAICT) or any of the characteristic tart flavor.

Red Sea. San Jose, CA. I haven’t eaten here for years, mainly because the spice combinations are insanely inconsistent. The first time I had the fish wot, it was great, but another time it seemed like chicken bouillon cubes were added. (A shame since this is the only Bay Area Ethiopian restaurant I’ve found that serves any seafood.) Don’t bother with the weird dessert consisting of frozen mashed poundcake with juice; if you must have dessert there, just play it safe with the baklava. Yelp reviews

Shebele. Campbell, CA. CLOSED. This was the first authentic Ethiopian place I ate at, where injera was brown with teff and tasty like a good sourdough. They weren’t shy here with spices, either. The first time there, the service was painfully slow, but during later visits the service improved. As the years went by, sadly, the quality nosedived, ranging from erratic spicing to undrinkable water (i.e., tasting like bleach). Prolly no surprise that they decided to halt their business.

Not so local: Little Ethiopia on Fairfax Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

I have barely scratched the surface of the many Ethiopian eateries on this 1-block stretch. Gridskipper has several reviews of Ethiopian restaurants in LA.

Nyala. When my friends and I first came here in the 1990s, it was a quiet place for a spicy, hands-on meal. These days it’s a lot more popular, and a bit less spicy (perhaps more Americanized?). They also serve shrimp and fish dishes. Yelp reviews

Messob. I haven’t been to Messob in many years, but to my recollection the spiciness was fun to revel in, whether with vegetables or chicken. Yelp reviews

The Salvadoran version of horchata is the next-most-important thing. I still don’t think I’ve got the recipe quite right, so that’s another item I always order at Salvadoran restaurants.

My favorites (best listed first) are a tie between Vicky’s and Sabor. My standard order is chicken (with cheese), beans (with cheese), loroco (with cheese) or even zucchini (with cheese). Curtido (pickled cabbage slaw, sometimes with chile, carrots, oregano and/or epazote) and (non-spicy) tomato sauce accompany the pupusas. (I have yet to find a tomato-sauce-for-pupusas that I enjoy. Unfortunately, they all seem bland, almost like tomato soup or sauce from a can.)

What are your favorite (or not-so-favorite) pupuserías? Especially those with interesting or unconventional fillings. Have any of you tried rice pupusas?

Most of these restaurants don’t have their own website, so I link to reviews from other sites as an additional resource. An important note about ordering pupusas: Be prepared to wait if you want them cooked properly. The masa is significantly thicker than in tortillas, so undercooking would result in something raw and unpleasantly starchy.

Vicky’s Salvadoran & Mexican Restaurant, San José, CA. Crisp on the outside, tender and moist on the inside. The ideal pupusas, the cook somehow manages to maintain some of the chicken sauce (marinade?) without the masa going soggy. Yelp reviews

Sabor Salvadoreño, a.k.a., the Pupusa Factory, Santa Clara, CA. Best horchata, ¡la mejor!, out of all the places mentioned here, with a nutty almost spicy goodness. Like Vicky’s, their pupusas have some the best texture and flavor combinations, perfectly cooked. Metroactive review | Yelp reviews

La Bamba, Mountain View, CA. No chicken or zucchini here, so I settle for the bean, loroco or cheese-only ones. Tasty, but somewhat greasier than Vicky’s or Sabor’s. Another reason to come here is for their alfajores, butter-cookie sandwiches filled with caramel (or dulce de leche?). Failure to obtain a sufficient quantity of alfajores could result in arguments between otherwise close friends. Note: I’ve had food from only their original restaurant on Old Middlefield Way; I’ve yet to try out their new place in downtown Mountain View. Yelp reviews

El Calderón, Mountain View, CA. This place is…okay. They don’t have much variety in the pupusa fillings, so I’m faced with only plain cheese, or cheese and beans, as choices. It’s not bad…just not compelling. Yelp reviews

Grumble…

Amelia’s Restaurant, Redwood City, CA. Hmm, the last time I tried their cheese pupusas, they exceeded my tolerance of grease and hunks of dripping cheese. This meant piling on more and more of the curtido, which ended up both hiding and missing the point of the pupusa. But that was over a decade ago, and friends tell me they now have ones filled with chicken and cheese. This will require further investigation and consideration, you understand. Yelp reviews

Donut Field, Mountain View, CA. It was odd to see a pupusería inside of a donut shop, but there you go. I’ve been here only once, and sadly I’m hesitant to go again. Getting bones in both of the two chicken pupusas disturbed me. Yelp reviews

There wasn’t much of the miserable rodent left. But my morbid curiosity (with permission from PG&E and the fire department) allowed me some picture taking. I think it was a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk, or possibly a Cooper’s Hawk. Hard to tell, with its belly singed and tail obscured. (I restrained myself from turning it over.)

Continue onward to view a raptor memorial, as well as for additional bird news. I.e., this serves as a warning about a dead animal photo; it’s isn’t gross IMO, just sad, really.

If you want to see other pictures of this incident, let me know and I’ll send you links. They’re more gruesome compared with the one below, so I’ve hidden them somewhat.

However, on a much lighter note, and also related to the title, we’ve been watching a pair of Mockingbirds making a nest in one of the honeysuckle bushes. It’d be great to have a mockie family in the yard. I just hope they aren’t in danger of rodential or feline harassment, since the bush is on a not-so-high fence.

Mockingbird sez, “Eh? Wot?”

It is a definite pleasure to watch and listen El Mocko sing on our chimney. They are so cute while in gathering or bathing mode. (So far neither has decided to dive-bomb us, which would be awkward; they do swoop at cats that meander into the yard, though.) One of them was torn between hiding away, taking a bath and checking me out. Such smart chaps!

No avian tenants yet in the birdhouse, even though we still Chickadees and Oaktits in the yard. Wrens continue to sing loudly and fly about; they’ve been carrying snacks and nesting bits, but it’s unclear where their nest is.

Update 10:30am: I had written this entry on 23 March. This morning, however, I saw a Mockingbird egg on the fence near the honeysuckle. My guess is maybe our neighbors saw it on the ground and placed it there. My other guess is the local Bewick’s Wrens might’ve been the culprit who knocked it out of the nest in the first place. (Or the House Sparrows, or the California Towhees eyeing the bush; they’re other birds seen in the vicinity.) Or maybe a neighborhood cat popped it out…though the honeysuckle seems too dense for anything larger than a small bird. Many suspects. I still hear the mockie singing, but I’m crestfallen because I doubt they’ll continue to nest nearby.

Update this evening: I’ve seen the Mockingbird fly into the bush twice since I last wrote. Perhaps there’s hope for viable clutch and fledglings this year! (S/he could’ve been moving nesting material to another location. Who knows?) Those beasts are certainly persistent.

Before bathroom remodel.

But finally, finally two years ago, we got everything stripped down to the studs, and in about a month we had a lovely functional bathroom. (Designing and planning always take the lion’s share of time!) Not in pink. In greens and blues, since bathrooms are easy to associate with water, after all. It took me a couple years to get around to uploading the pictures, but there you go.

After bathroom remodel (though shower doors were soon installed).

“Birders, are ye?” Well, I prefer the term bird watching, mainly because Simon and I are very amateurish about the whole avian sighting thing. We’ve gotten into the habit only about four or five years ago. Having a garden helps, I tell ya. Along with binoculars.

I highly recommend the Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America as a guidebook. Since I often hear the birds before I see them, having good audio guides also help, such as the Peterson Field Guides Western Birding by Ear (a good teaching and learning resource) and Western Bird Songs (more comprehensive).

I also link to the corresponding page at the awesome Cornell Lab of Ornithology for each species. Their videos require QuickTime (pretty, but limited), and their audio samples require RealPlayer (ugh, why not MP3?), although the latter comes in both Mac and Linux versions. On to the list!

Common visitors

These include our year round avian neighbors and reliable migratory visitors.

• American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
• Western Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica)
• Nothern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
• Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna)
• Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans)
• Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens)
• Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus)
• Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus)
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula)
• American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
• Yellow-rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata)
• Bewick’s Wren (Thryomanes bewickii)
• California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis)
• White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)
• Golden-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla)
• House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)
• Lesser Goldfinch (Carduelis psaltria)
• Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)
• European House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

Occasional visitors

Sighted now and again, usually a few times annually.

• Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
• Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii)
• Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
• Nuttall’s Woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii)
• Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)
• Hooded Oriole (Icterus cucullatus)
• Brewer’s Blackbird (Euphagus cyanocephalus)
• Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater)
• Townsend’s Warbler (Dendroica townsendi)
• American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis)
• Black-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)
• European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Rare visitors

Some birds we’ve seen only once or thrice.

• Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
• Great Egret (Ardea alba)
• Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)
• Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus)
• Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus)
• Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia)
• Black-throated Grey Warbler (Dendroica nigrescens)
• Orange-crowned Warbler (Vermivora celata)
• Black-headed Grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus)

Yellow-rumped Warbler and the Avocado of Gluttony (February 2008).

At the end of January, Simon cleaned out the house previously occupied by the Chestnut-backed Chickadees. They came to feast on seeds from volunteer sunflowers in October, but I haven’t seen them again until recently.

Nest of former chickadee tenants. (February 2008).

Mockingbirds tentatively started singing around the end of January. Now they’re singing frequently, flying around chak-chakking at anyone threatening their favorite trees.

This past week, though, everyone has gone nutso! The Bushtit mafia flies from bush to tree to hedge and back again. Gangs of House Finches, Lesser Goldfinches, American Robins and Cedar Waxwings argue and take baths. Pairs of chickadees and Oak Titmice vie (possibly) for the birdhouse. Bewick’s Wrens belie their surreptitious nature with loud BWEEE-chivi-chivi-chivi’ing. Black-eyed Juncos forage for snacks. And another reminder that young Cooper’s Hawks use our backyard for hunting practice and…make pit-stops at birdbaths?

“Bathe or hunt?” Cooper’s hawk on arbor, seemingly considering the birdbath below. (Photo by Simon, February 2008)

There’s a squirrel who made the mistake of tucking away an avocado (from a tree a couple houses away) in the apricot tree. Which has no leaves or big enough holes for cover. Which is also a big meeting place for birds. Suffice to say, after too many bites stolen (stolen? who took the fruit from where and when?) by Mr. Yellow-butt, Ms. (or Mr.) Squirrel decided to store the rich stash elsewhere.

Hyup! The squirrel with the Avocado of Gluttony. Observe its kyoot belly. (February 2008)

More bird pictures in the avian gallery.

A brief chronicle of The Squirrel and the Avocado.

• Played with the MacBook Air. Oh, my, it felt thinner than I was expecting! This is the slimmest, lightest computer I’ve held since Akkana’s Vaio. Its specifications aren’t enough for my own needs, but I think the MacBook Air would be perfect for MacBook-level users, or those who already have a primary desktop and need to travel frequently with a lighter secondary machine. The bevel (frame) around the display seems too wide (similar to the MacBook). I wonder what technical limitations prevented Apple from maximizing the monitor area?
• The Time Capsule has a cute, low profile design. I’d prefer more than 1 Terabyte of storage; then again, my crazy storage philosophy is to obtain at least four to ten times capacity than I think I’ll need. It also seems expensive at $500, but I’m confident that capacity will inevitably increase, along with a price decrease. Er, make that hopeful. Wonder if one could backup non-Mac machines, like Linux and Windows? On a related note, Simon visited the Drobo booth, which has a similar networked storage system.
• I acquired a collection of handbag brochures, mostly for friends who might be seeking a briefcase with laptop capacity (Kathleen? Sonya?). My attention to iPod accessories was at a minimum this year, as I’ve found that the iPod shuffle’s clip is the best way to have portable, less obtrusive music as I exercise.
• Kensington had an Expert Mouse (trackball) hooked up to a MacBook Pro running Leopard. It behaved fine, except for weird pointer jumps due to other users playing with nearby wireless mice. I also noticed that they didn’t install (on purpose?) their own MouseWorks software on the computer. I asked the rep if there were plans to update that package for Leopard, and the response was (my paraphrasing), “Yes, sometime soon we’ll upload a new version to the site.” Sadly, I forgot to ask if there were plans to make a wireless version of the Expert Mouse.
• Living-e AG, makers of MAMP, were not present. Not too surprising, as they’re based in Germany, and haven’t released any major upgrades. MAMP 1.7.1, though, was released back in December (or November, or…?), which I haven’t installed yet. The website and forum remain out of date (without RSS) and full of spam, respectively.
• I wish I lingered longer at the MacSpeech booth, which was impressively bigger than in previous years. They have discontinued their speech recognition application iListen and replaced it with Dictate. I bought iListen a few years ago, but gave up because of its long training period, slow performance and just-enough-to-be-disruptive error rate. Dictate, which is based on Dragon Naturally Speaking, is currently in beta, but touts better accuracy and speed. I’d like to give MacSpeech’s product another try! Will need to dig around to see if I could participate in any beta testing. Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng wrote a good article describing the new Dictate project, which won Best of Show for Macworld 2008. (Odd for an application that isn’t released yet, hmm?)

Addendum (24-Jan-2008): I don’t mind the MacBook Air’s footprint, especially since I prefer a large display. (Rarely traveling with a laptop influences this opinion, of course.) Thin form and low weight are very important to me —seeing and holding the MacBook Air made me gasp with wonder. Certain features, namely the small hard drive, slower processor, Remote Disc limitations and lack of Firewire port, hold me from wanting one. (I’m usually a slow, late adopter of computing gadgetry, thus my less-than-two-year-old MacBook Pro suffices for now.) But I look forward to (i.e., hope for) future computers, especially in the professional series, that will use the MacBook Air as a model of space and power efficiency. A computer that can be rolled up like a towel: well, I can dream.

Strange but pleasant observation upon returning home: I thought the 5.6M earthquake in San José would’ve at least knocked off a few books from shelves. But nope, everything was in place. Guess the shakes were in the “best” directions (whew).

What I already miss:

• Beautiful hikes in Cumbria. No rain, either.
• So little time to hang out and investigate Edinburgh. Again, our weather karma held out.
• Old buildings. It’s exciting to be surrounded by unfamiliar (and often cool) architecture.
• Delicious food, especially seafood, sandwiches and innovative Indian-fusion cuisine. More on that later, perhaps.
• Easy access to tea. Tea rooms and cafés with fresh tea and cakes. Everywhere. Oh, right, it’s the U.K., duh.
• Rail service. It exists throughout. Lovely views going from London to Carlisle, as well as from Edinbirgh to London.
• Reminders in perspective: While English might be the official language, it remains different from home! Communication styles and nuances required getting used to, but still intriguing to observe and learn from.
• Friendly, helpful service people. Those in retail (e.g., advice at a pharmacy, the O2 franchises, etc.) seem much better trained and more clueful than those here. (Insert clichéd regret at the demise of American shops and retail.)

What I don’t miss:

• The push of the Christmas sales crap in October, which seems sooner than over here.
• Salty food, even at some upmarket restaurants! How odd.
• How CDMA mobile devices are bricked overseas. Thanks a bunch, Verizon. Also, how other carriers make it difficult to roam overseas. Thanks AT&T, for neglecting to activate a service we’re already being charged for. And people wonder about my disgust with the telephonic technologies.
• Rail service from the 19th century. Repairs and maintenance indicated, yet unavoidable. Delays and inconsistent news and announcements.
• London Heathrow. Queues. Air and noise pollution. More repairs indicated.
• Having a cold/the flu sucks while traveling.

Photographs (mostly by Simon) to follow. There are a lot to sift through, so it might, er, take a while.

I need to deal with a huge load of spam messages that Thunderbird can no longer handle gracefully or efficiently. So if you sent me an email and still await a response, you might need to send it again …or, uh, wait a bit longer. Techno-rant digression: To quote the hosting service support,

The Thunderbird e-mail client (v2.*) has a bug that causes the Trash folder to overfill with temp files when you try to delete a large number of messages or if there are a large number of messages already in the Trash folder. When this happens the Trash folder becomes unusable and usually causes errors (i.e., Connection dropped by IMAP server…). To work around this bug I’d recommend deleting smaller numbers of messages (at one time) and purging/emptying the Trash folder often so it doesn’t get very full.

Many thanks to my hosting service for their explanation and help! I cannot seem to find a Bugzilla number[s] for this issue, though. Sadly, this might be the ultimate push for me to switch to another mail client, sooner rather than later.

Sun Gold cherry tomatoes: So dainty, so golden, so many.

I collected a basket of tomatoes, only to be reminded that there was another basket sitting in the kitchen, staring and waiting. It was time to do something before they started to attract fruit flies… Allow me to present the Lazy Tomato Sauce.

I cheated by using a flavored oil like infused garlic olive oil. Another big shortcut was not peeling or seeding the tomatoes. Yup, whirl ‘em all! However, you should taste the sauce before puréeing, to see if the skins or seeds seem bitter, which might occur with tomatoes at the end of their season. (If this occurs, resort to filtering through a food mill or sieve to remove the bits, but that goes against the lazy technique

The total oil amount will depend on the amount of tomatoes. My very rough rule of thumb was about 2 to 3 tablespoons per pound of tomatoes.

Sadly this year’s Early Girls turned out to be flavorless balls. (It’s usually such a reliably tasty variety; perhaps the strain has been, uh, strained.) Hence another cheating moment: adding just a touch of sweetening, not to make it really sweet of course, but to open up the flavors, similar to salt.

Ingredients

• A large amount of fresh tomatoes you don’t know what to do with, say, at least 2 to 3 pounds
• 3 or more tablespoons of garlic-infused olive oil; you could chop up a bunch of garlic, but we’re aiming for least effort expended.
• 2 or more tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 bay leaf
• (optional) wine: I used some leftover Viognier (true to both laziness and avoiding waste), but anything to complement the tomatoes would work.
• salt and pepper, to taste
• (optional) sugar, honey or molasses, to taste: I used 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.
• (optional) tender, aromatic herbs, like fresh basil, parsley, chervil, etc.

Method

1. Wash and roughly chop the tomatoes.
2. Place the tomatoes, bay leaf, the garlic oil, olive oil and wine (if using) into a heavy-bottomed stock pot. Bring to an energetic simmer.
3. Simmer until the sauce reaches your desired thickness. For me it took about 45 to 60 minutes.
4. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat. Remove bay leaf. Cool a bit before the next step.
5. Apply immersion blender to attain desired level of smoothness.
6. If serving immediately, stir in chopped herbs if you want, and/or stir in some crème fraîche, yogurt or sour cream. Inhale with pasta, or other suitable dishes. Freeze leftovers for off-season consumption (with or without herbs or cream, although some fresh herbs might darken over time).

Nope. I walked around the backyard two days ago, and saw how the paths were strewn with bruised, sweet-smelling apricots (as well as the soles of my sandals). Fortunately, quite a few fruit remain on the tree. (Not as many as past years, but the slow die-back is endemic to this valley. Sadness!)

Let this be a reminder for me: The fruit remained green and small until about the beginning of this month, June. So it takes the better part of a month for ‘em to plump up, turn that charming orangey-pink-red, and develop that perfumy sweetness. This year.

In any case, the next week or two will be our mad apricot jam and chutney cookin’ phase. In addition to the ones here, Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes wrote a article referencing a bunch of mouth-watering apricot recipes.

Anna’s Hummingbird: Scritchy scritchy complain scritchy… BzzzzzzPINGk!

Black Phoebe: Pfee pfee. (Wag tail.) Pfee.

Western Scrub-jay: (Insert loud, rasping squawk of choice.)

…And: Chichichi chichi chichi hyeenhyeenh! Hyeenh hyeenh! (Repeat.) Chestnut-backed Chickadees have become our neighbors.

Chestnut-backed chickadee during a bath: “Hey! I haff not yet coiffed my feathères.”

A couple years ago Simon gave me a birdhouse for small wren-like birds, which he mounted on the backroom wall, near the apricot tree. Nobody visited, until last Summer, when I heard a hammering sound coming from the backroom. The neighbors next door were remodeling, so I nearly shrugged it off. I went outside to see a Nuttall’s Woodpecker widening the birdhouse’s entry hole. Unfortunately, the woodpecker lost interest and never nested there.

Last month as I was staring at the apricot blossoms, and heard a couple of chickadees calling to each other, with beaks full of blossoms and grass. They flew in the direction of the birdhouse, perhaps scoping it out.

For the next several weeks I’ve continued to hear chickadee chatter. Tenants at last? Yes, especially when any of the jays or mockingbirds come nearby. Oh boy, do they raise a(n auditory) stink when either human or bird come near the apricot tree, and therefore their domicile.

Chickadee loudly expressing disapproval, with a beak full o’ tasty crunchies.

Two weeks ago I started hearing a high pitched Peepeepeepeeeee. Chickalets! The parents remain quite defensive of their foraging grounds, yelling in that incongruously giggling voice. It sounds like there are at least two youngins. They’re gradually developing that chattery giggle their parents have. (Checheche che che che.)

Just yesterday we saw one of the kids for the first time, poking its head out of the b-house. Like most young birds, its mouth has this amusing “scrowling” expression, made noticeable with a contrasting yellow beak (unlike their parents’, which are black). It’s a sign that they don’t have full plumage, or adult coloring. But they do have enough feathers to make me wonder if they’ll fledge soon. I will upload more photos to the creatures album.

Scrowlie gawking…staring… photo by Simon Fraser.