Woodworking
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Since I was a kid with buckets and buckets of Legos, I have always liked working with my hands and building (or destroying) things. Tools, too, I've always been fascinated with. They make jobs easier; some jobs are impractical without them. Inspired by a friend's habit/hobby/livelihood of woodworking and carpentry, I decided get into woodworking joinery.
We've all put together a piece (or several pieces) of furniture from Ikea, and I think most of us recognize those small wooden dowels and hex-keyed screws Ikea uses to secure pieces of wood together. That's fine for what it is, but it's awesome to see furniture secured together without screws or nails, held together only with dovetail joints or mortise and tenon joints (and maybe some glue).
With that, I bought some Marples chisels, a Veritas dovetail saw and marking gauge, and a few pieces of pine and maple. Here's one of my first mortise and tenon joints:
It's fascinating to see how the simplest structures are sometimes the most stable. A mortise and tenon is an example of this. It's basically one piece of wood shaped to fit into the hollow of another (see below figure, stolen from Wikipedia). The tenon fits into the mortise, which is cut out with a chisel and hammer (or powered machine, like a mortiser). It's been used for thousands of years, and when done properly, serves both functionally and aesthetically ("look ma, no nails!").
Summer '11 Road trip - Part II
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After a few days of recovery at Greg's place in Draper UT, we continued on to see Arches National Park, Moab UT, and Monument Valley. I like the pictures I came back with, so I'll just leave them to speak for themselves. (Yes, I am aware none of my pictures of Arches National Park have any arches in them...)
180º view at the Park Avenue trailhead - Arches NP
Vanessa at Arches NP
Panorama of Monument Valley UT
Monument Valley UT
Approaching Monument Valley UT
Summer '11 Road trip - Part I
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We left for our 13-day road trip on June 28, setting off for Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Arches National Park, Moab UT, Monument Valley, then home via Las Vegas again. We took a pit stop in Vegas on the way out, staying at the (relatively) new Cosmopolitan on the strip. We began celebrating our summer vacation with dinner at Aureole, maybe not one of Charlie Palmer's best restaurants. It's perhaps best known for its "wine angels," thin women in spandex ascending and descending the tower that is their wine cellar. They must have had the night off, because we never saw them. Food was very good, though we thought the Michelin critics might have been a bit generous in awarding Aureole a star.
In the morning, we drove up to Draper UT to pick up my buddy Greg and his girlfriend, our companions to Yellowstone. None of us had ever been there, and we were all eager to see all the colorful pools, wildlife, and geysers like Old Faithful (pictured above). It's a fascinating landscape, and it looks more like the surface of another planet than a national park. I wish I could have had a birds-eye view, but regrettably, we left the helicopter at home.
Thermal pools near Old Faithful
Grand Prismatic Spring
Pool at the Lower Geyser Basin
Bison, just chillin' in the parking lot area
Mélisse - April 30, 2011
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There is such a thing as a perfect meal. Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. Chili cheese fries from Wienerschnitzel. Yesterday, it was Mélisse in Santa Monica. We were celebrating two (belated) anniversaries and two (recent) birthdays with good friends on Saturday evening, but instead of rambling, here are the pictures, and yes, it was as delicious as it was beautiful. Ten courses, each more amazing than the previous...
Our greetings from the Staff. Chocolate truffles as parting gifts.
Two amuse-bouches: (left) grapes covered in chevre and ground pistachio, grape gelée (but not quite...); (right) Kushi oyster, Tabasco caviar
(top) Sweet Pea Velouté [English peas, petite onion, black truffle cromesquis (like a meat crouton)];
(bottom left) Egg Caviar [lemon crème fraîche, American caviar;
(bottom right) Florida Big Eye Tuna [Hawaiian heart of palm, cucumber, red shiso]
(top left) Seared Foie Gras [Royal Kay cherries, McGrath farm turnips, wild arugula, oatmeal crumble]
(top right) Santa Barbara Spot Prawn [Zuckerman Farms purple asparagus, morel mushrooms, uni emulsion]
(bottom left) Wild King Salmon [fava beans, snap pears, cauliflower, Marcona almonds, calendula emulsion]
(bottom right) Prime rib eye and Wagyu beef cheek [slow roasted carrot, garlic shoots, potato mousseline, red wine herb jus]
(top left) Apple, Apple, Apple [liquid nitrogen apple sorbet, apple crisps, apple meringue]
(top right) Chantal Plasse Camembert [Périgord truffle, baby radish, chrysanthemum]
(bottom) Chocolate & Caramel fondant [hazelnut crumble, Valrhona Abiano sorbet, Mochaccino]
I have nothing more to say.
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