Eating like a local

I'm amazed at how my eating habits change when I'm in different places.

Nashville was where I learned to eat (and love) sushi and Indian food.  Biryani was definitely a thing.  I also ate a ton of chicken noodle soup because it was cheap, and I was a poor college student.  Somehow, I avoided ramen.

In State College, I developed my love of spicy food, as we would order hot sauces off the internet and eat drops of them on tortilla chips.  What can I say, sometimes rural Pennsylvania was a slow-moving place.  I'd say it was at this point of my life in grad school where I really learned to cook, especially as I started wanting to get healthier and lose weight.  A good set of knives was, and still is, invaluable.  So was Food Network.  I definitely had my share of East Asian noodle dishes, and I learned about the wonder that is yuk gae jang, and also Korean food in general.  State College is also where I learned to drink and love copious amounts of coffee.

Toronto was where I developed an intense love for pho.  I really liked it but didn't eat it often.  Canada also has a few foods that are much more prevalent there than here, such as persimmons and beets.  And we cannot forget the wonders that are back bacon and Timbits.  Canada was, ironically enough, where I discovered avocados, and I realized that a quarter avocado sliced up on toast was really good.  This was years before the avocado toast revolution.  I like to think I was ahead of the times.

I learned to embrace the winter by cooking and eating lots of hearty soups and stews in Michigan.  Pho and various Korean dishes were super prevalent, and I really developed a love for local sandwich joints.  The farmers markets had all sorts of great stuff in the summer, but the winters definitely proved a bit sparse.

Now that I'm in California, I find myself trying to eat local things.  The farmers markets are filling up with citrus, and the mandarin oranges are fantastic.  I'm eating olives (!) and eggs (!!), two things of which I've never been very fond.  I incorporate lots of lime juice and Mexican flavors into my cooking, and I take full advantage of the spoils of my adopted basil plant, which has been growing like a weed.

I cook a lot more pescatarian/vegetarian/vegan than I ever have before.  Probably some of that is me being lazy, but I know some of it is because it's so hot here, I don't really want to use a lot of heat for prolonged periods to cook.  I'll order things with meat in them if I'm going out, but I don't know.... a slab of steak doesn't seem all that appetizing most of the time.

However, I have no problem eating pho on the hottest days of the year.  I have a separate stomach for pho, and having about ten pho places in my immediate vicinity doesn't at all hurt!

This.... state.... is on FIRE.

With apologies to Alicia Keys.

Southern California has been in the national news for the past few days because of our fires.  The biggie is the fire burning up in Ventura, near L.A., but this week, we got a taste of our own fire.

I don't actually live in San Diego, but rather north San Diego county ("north county"), in a town called Vista.  On Thursday afternoon, when I was busy with some on-site clients at the lab in Carlsbad, we noticed that we could see smoke out the window.

Then some coworkers got the call for mandatory evacuation, and they took off posthaste.  One of my colleagues' smoke detectors were alarming by the time she got home.

People were dropping out of work at an alarming rate as more schools and homes were evacuated.  I was definitely scared, but distracted by my clients.

And then I got home and made the mistake of turning on the TV.  Horses running everywhere, people evacuating, traffic backed up, and camera shots that looked like hell was being unleashed down the sides of canyons.

Wouldn't you be scared?

The Santa Ana winds were blowing to the southwest, and Vista was south of the fire zone.  I put Franz's collar on just as a precaution, and then they started making rumblings of evacuating Vista.

I will admit to having a mild freakout.  I threw a suitcase of essentials together for both girl and cat and gathered crucial documents and keepsakes for easy car loading.  Only northwest Vista was being evacuated, but I was ready for the call.

I didn't sleep well, as I kept waking up and checking for alerts on my phone.  But once those winds died down, the fire crews were (amazingly) able to hold the line on the Lilac fire.  Schools were out as a precaution, and half my coworkers weren't there the next day, but as far as I know, no one's home was burned.

Here are the current boundaries of the Lilac fire.  Fire crews have now switched to an offensive fight from a defensive one.  It is predicted to be ten more days before the fire truly is extinguished.

Lilac fire boundaries, Dec. 10 morning

I've endured tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, and blizzards, but my fear in those paled in comparison to the fear I felt with the threat of fire.  And with these dry conditions, the threat is constant, as well.

It was a real wake-up call.  I'm no longer in a land with an overabundance of water.

Hello winter my old friend....

...it's nice to play in you again.

As much as I enjoy my new temperate climate, I'm trying to grapple with it being so unfamiliar.  So yesterday, I took myself to the local skating rink at Icetown Carlsbad for a little bit of winter sports and comfort.  The reviews said to expect it to be SO COLD in there.  I say, internally, bring it on.

I never skated much until I moved up north for graduate school, and the Penn State Ice Pavilion (which sadly is no more) would offer public skate afternoons on the weekends.  For $8 with a student ID, I could get a great workout in and better myself in a new area.  Being cold while ice skating has never been a problem for me.  I commonly emerge from the ice quite warm.

I really worked to get in shape in 2008, and it showed on the ice.  I could go faster, and for longer, the fitter I got.  I made friends with an older gentleman, a very graceful figure skater who also frequented the free skate days, and he complemented my ability.  I still remember it to this day.

There's something about ice skating that's therapeutic for me.  You get the endorphins of exercise, but you've also got to strategize, especially with younger (aka kamikaze, no fear) or inexperienced skaters.  You're constantly gauging the situation and figuring out what you're going to do next.  Can you safely pass?  Can you make that turn?  And my favorite: oh god, can I stop?!

I'm still not great at stopping.

O Canadaaaaa, my home and adoptive laaaaaand!

After an hour of skating, the crowds were getting oppressive, and a few near misses convinced me that it was probably time to quit.  But I walked out of there happy to have spent at least part of my day in the mid-fifties, even if some ladies outside warned me that I'd freeze at that temperature in my flip-flops.  Quaint.