weekend bookends

I went to the ballet a week ago with P and Mother in Law at the Lincoln Center.  We saw Swan Lake, and it was unbelievably beautiful, powerful, and moving.  I got a few shots of the David H. Koch theater from my BB.  

Then this past weekend I went to visit N, my old roommate from grad school who just moved into an apartment in downtown Milwaukee.  Our time was filled with ridiculous food.

 Giant, grilled pretzels

Bloody Mary topped with hamburger wrapped in bacon with melted cheese on top, olives, pickle, lime, lemon.  It tasted like BBQ sauce and bacon.

 Hamburger with peanut butter

 Hamburger with portabella mushroom stuffed with cheese and fried

 Hamburger topped with bratwurst, cheese curds, and beer soaked sauerkraut (daily special)

People in Milwaukee *really* love beer, and *really* KNOW beer.  This was the old PBR factory, which was situated right next to an old school.  Note the German architecture.  I always knew that Milwaukee liked their beer, but I had no idea how much and why.  Now I know!

A few more pics from the art museum designed by Santiago Calatrava.  I have a tendency to bring bad weather with me wherever I go.  Milwaukee was beautiful right before I arrived, rained and stormed when I got there, and then cleared up again when I left.  Anyway, as such, I didn't get to see the museum in all its glory.  It has wings that can be moved up and down, but I guess they only raise the wings when the wind isn't so threatening.  These are my inside shots, and toward the bottom is one that I pulled from the interwebz.

anniversaries

September 10

Anniversary of me - my birthday!  We took the ferry to Governors Island and rode tandem bikes, and then had a delicious meal at Morimoto. Drooooool.  Homemade tofu made right in front of our very eyes.  And there's nothing better than that toro tartare that looks like a painter's palette.

September 10/11 (the actual date is kind of vague since we met the night of Sept 10)
P and my SEVEN year anniversary.  Woah.  The number is starting to sound scary though it doesn't feel that long.  At least we're married now so we can start back from there - happy 4.5 month anniversary!  Yay!  We still sound young!

Out of curiosity, I looked up the traditional wedding anniversary gifts by year:
1. paper
2. cotton
3. leather
4. books/fruit/flowers
5. wood
6. sugar/iron
7. wool/copper
8. bronze/pottery
9. pottery/willow
10. tin/aluminum
11. steel
12. silk/linen
13. lace
14. ivory
15. crystal
20. china
25. silver
30. pearls (nowadays, diamonds)
35. coral
40. ruby
50. gold
60. diamond
70. platinum
75. diamond

I've only listed the traditional gifts here, but if you look at a modern day list, there are gifts for every SINGLE year.  Did you also see how diamonds jumped up in years?  It now only takes 30 years to get a diamond whereas it took twice that in the old days.  The marriage industry is JUST LIKE the wedding industry! Hmph!

By the way, if you make it to 100 years, you get a 10 carat diamond (modern gift). Haha... so ridiculous.  Have... to... make... it... to... 132 years old!  And so does HUSBAND!  LOL

the demon herb

My hate for cilantro runs true and deep. I enountered it for the first time when eating Vietnamese pho. I was maybe a mere 12 years old. So young, so innocent. I remember how the restaurant looked, how excited I was because my parents had been hyping up how good pho was, how I was further enticed by Vietnamese food with the delicious coffee dripping onto sweetened condensed milk and the fresh, soft spring rolls as appetizers.

Happy go lucky little kid I was until I had 1 spoonful of soup that had been "seasoned" by the innocent looking cilantro floating on top. I only needed one taste to be whipped back into the harsh reality that is the DEMON HERB. It seared into my taste buds like hydrochloric acid into my clothes in chemistry lab. I didn't even know it at the time that it was the DEMON HERB. I thought it was the soup, and I had decided that pho was the worst dish in the world, and how could anyone with any sense eat it for enjoyment??? What was wrong with my parents???

I've known other people to have a similar revulsion to cilantro, and it is always steee-RONG. Others describe it as a soapy taste. For me, it's more like a combination of chemicals (like those that you find in chem lab) and barf. Yes, barf. I don't want to eat barf.

Through the years, I've learned to deal with cilantro-ridden foods. The most difficult is salsa, but I carefully and patiently pick every bit of cilantro out before eating my burrito. The stems are the worst and the hardest to get out since they're often chopped pretty small. It might take me and extra 20 minutes to eat, but it's worth it. And don't worry, I now like pho but clearly order it without cilantro. CLEARLY.

For other wonderful stories from cilantro haters, visit: ihatecilantro.com. If you'll notice, it is always an extreme reaction to cilantro. Some gems:

"I hate you PLU code 4889!" - grocery store cashier

"It smelled like chemicals and hot dog mixed together"

"I started looking around for a dead rodent, and soon realized that it was coming from the cilantro plants. I picked a leaf, held it to my nose, and nearly threw up in my garden."

I've been told that it's a genetic thing; Sister has it too, "it" being cilantrophobia. My cousin recently sent me an article about it.

Here's an excerpt:

Flavor chemists have found that cilantro aroma is created by a half-dozen or so substances, and most of these are modified fragments of fat molecules called aldehydes. The same or similar aldehydes are also found in soaps and lotions and the bug family of insects.

Soaps are made by fragmenting fat molecules with strongly alkaline lye or its equivalent, and aldehydes are a byproduct of this process, as they are when oxygen in the air attacks the fats and oils in cosmetics. And many bugs make strong-smelling, aldehyde-rich body fluids to attract or repel other creatures.

The author of the article also mentioned how he used to be a cilantrophobe, but kept encountering it in happy settings, and so rewired his brain to eventually enjoy said DEMON HERB! The article also cites a study that says if you crush the leaves, the enzymes from the leaves will break down the aldeydes. It says the cilantro pesto is pretty mild.

It's encouraging to know that I can work on my cilantrophobia, but honestly, I'm not willing to put the work in. The torture is not worth it to me, so I will continue to take an extra 20 minutes to pick out cilantro from my salsa.