So I enrolled in TCHO’s milk chocolate beta. They didn’t want to be judged on texture yet, which made critiquing the creaminess aspect a bit tricky. As of this writing they have yet to release version 1.0. Overall, though the later betas did show remarkable improvement over the earlier samples.
But to answer some questions (or remarks) you might have lingering:
- Yes, I enjoy both dark and milk chocolate. I’ve had excellent versions of both, as well as yucky ones best reserved for the trashbin.
- Why pay for a beta program? (Aimed especially at those who get free TCHO tastings: Hey! Not all of us have that opportunity.) Well, I consider this on par with eating food that, like a restaurant, someone has shopped for (ingredient-wise) and produced — more so than with software betas. For example, a software beta might have big, annoying bugs worth tolerating. But food betas need to be free of big issues such as, oh, parasitic or toxic contaminants, or being spoiled. And unlike software which can be delivered online for free, food shipments do carry the cost of transportation.
- Also, TCHO is one of the few (remaining) independent Californian chocolate producers, as opposed to confectioners. So far I don’t mind contributing to their efforts.
- Moreover, I’ve already enjoyed several of their chocolates — an even stronger reason to support them. Of the four dark chocolates they offer, I recommend “Fruity v2.0″ (plum-y and round, like a good port) and “Chocolatey v1.0″ (lush, spicy coffee).
On to the results…
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I’m still using Evernote as my note-taking app on the iPhone, but I have become increasingly disgruntled with it. Sadly, I’ve yet to find a significantly better note-taking solution, although Simplenote and Take A Note might have potential in the future.
I’ve also come to the conclusion that I need only a note-taking application. Having checkboxes and to-do lists would be a plus, but not really necessary for my own needs. I still don’t need a GTD tool, either. Because notes can be lists for my purposes, this entry focuses more on notes compared with my previous entry (nearly two years ago!).
While using Evernote, I’ve noticed some features I’ve become dependent upon:
- Offline (a.k.a., local) access to my notes and lists. Useful when there’s no network or WiFi access.
- Being able to categorize or tag notes for sorting and searching is important. I have more than a couple dozen notes, so I need some way of organizing them instead of one big list. Tagging has the advantage of allowing more than one tag per note, but even categorizing (e.g., into labeled folders) helps. The big limitation with categories is that typically a note can be in only one category.
- Desktop access to edit my notes and lists. Or, at the very least, desktop access through a web interface. Why? When I’m in front of my computer, it’s much easier for me to type with a hardware keyboard. Another reason: If I change note-taking apps in the future, I want some way to migrate them, even if it’s as basic as copying and pasting text.
- Web access is good only if it’s a secure (
https / SSL) connection.
- Nice to have: The ability to either photograph or record notes and lists. Voice transcription would be swell, but not really required.
- Free or low cost.
I didn’t spend equally extensive periods of time using each app, so these reviews are summarized in places. I spent more time with apps which felt easier to use, with features that interested me more. I’m sure there are other note-taking apps I’m unaware of. If there’s one you highly recommend using, feel free to suggest it, although I cannot guarantee I’ll have time to look at it.
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This is the first time I’ve had an eggplant deluge. They even arrived before the tomatoes or chili peppers decided to ripen. Having them in the Very Hot bed with southern exposure helps, I bet — along with El Niño slowing down the remaining nightshade plants this year.
During the cold months I develop a serious hankering for this purple fruit that it got me thinking of a way to preserve this summer’s generosity. Actually, I don’t know whether there’ll be eggplants left over, because I’ve been eating them up soon after cooking them. But just in case, roasting then freezing them turns out to be an easy way to create eggplant insurance.
The nearly black ones are the Japanese “Oriental” variety; the lighter magenta ones with the green sepals are “Pingtung Long,” a Thai variety
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Atakilt wat (a.k.a., atakilt alicha, ye’atakilt wot, etc.) is another one of my favorite Ethiopian dishes, made of humble vegetables: cabbage, potatoes, carrots and onions. Even though it’s rather mild, it’s still quite tasty.
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Ethiopian cuisine offers such a wide range of vegetable dishes that it’s easy to go meatless. However, yedoro tibs (a.k.a., doro tibs) is one of the few meat dishes I really enjoy. The boneless chicken is in an easy munchable size, and the rich sauce has such depth!
Yedoro tibs on (yep, store-bought) injera.
Yedoro tibs might be a bit time-consuming to prepare, but the process is actually rather straightforward. Other than chopping, sautéing and simmering, the trickiest aspect us finding two key ingredients: the berbere spice mix and nitr qibe (nitter kibbeh), the spiced clarified butter. I recently discovered an Ethiopian grocery within reasonable driving distance (Abadir Grocery in Santa Clara, for the curious), so I was glad to have a chance to make this at home.
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I recently took a vegetarian Indian cooking class in which we cooked a rice dish very similar to this one, except that we used cashews. I learned how the black (not white or green) cardamom adds a subtle smokey, resiny savoriness.
My version uses a rice cooker, because, well, it’s an appliance I frequently use. O:-)
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I had started writing up this recipe last summer, but got distracted by our renovation planning. What reminded me to post this was seeing a couple of tubs of this soup sitting in our freezer. In a few months we might make this again, if this year’s garden is as productive as 2009’s.
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Here’s another way to make use of both the zucchini and tomato piles! This soup has a gentle curry twist. If you want a sweet touch, add in the raisins. Otherwise, if your tomatoes are naturally quite sweet, you can omit them.
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I’m not a fan of whole nuts or chunks of nuts in cookies, but sometimes I do enjoy ground up nuts in them. I’ve been toying with making a hazelnut variation of my whole wheat shortbread, but only recently made them. (Now that I have a kitchen again.)
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I’ve added (and removed) comics from my list of ongoing comics I read. Unsurprisingly, mostly involving manga, as those series tend to be finite (yay! boo!).
I’m slowly updating my previously read comics lists as well, most notably pointing out ones I highly recommend. I’ll also need to check for obsolete links, as well as to add a few more comics I’ve forgotten about…
Did you think we’d be finished finished? Ho, ho, ho, no, because tweaks and projects never really end for a home. We still have our own set of tasks we’d like to complete by, oh, sometime this year:
- Furniture. We need a sofa, a dining table, and MOAR chairs.
- Window blinds. Including one for the sliding door, which hopefully won’t be a pain to operate.
- A new front door. We ordered it, but since the door is custom-made, it’ll arrive sometime in May or June.
- Shelves, etc. for organizing the pantry and hallway closet.
- Bookshelves and hanging pictures.
- Painting the exterior of the house.
- Painting a couple more rooms inside the house.
- A much better toaster oven.
- Unpacking (and re-storage) that never seems to end.
…Not to mention lots of cleanup.
If you have any favorite or recommended vendors or products for the above, online or brick and mortar, please do share! (I predict visits to the Container Store will exist in my future. 😉