senoritafish

On the last of school before Winter Break, Angus's core special ed class will be sharing family traditions and having a "Cultural Feast," for which each child is encouraged to bring some type of food, whether from a family tradition or cultural background. Huh. About the only traditional thing I make every year is clam chowder on Xmas Eve - which I actually changed from my mom making oyster stew (I like the flavor of oysters but not necessarily the texture). Last year when we went up to my brother's in his new place in LA, it morphed again into clam dip; he'd made something else, and had us make something my grandparents used to traditionally put out at family gatherings (that and celery sticks with Lawry's Seasoned Salt). I'm not sure how a bunch of seventh graders, some with allergies, and probably others with texture/sensory issues, are going to feel about clams, much less soup that might get kind of messy. Angus suggested calimari - ha! Even better! I can just see some kid's reaction to tentacles.

As far cultural background...um, haggis? Irish whiskey (runsamuck's suggestion)? Can't see those going over real well either. ;p

He did also bring up Hoppin' John, more of a New Year's thing. We've made it a few times, but I wouldn't quite say it's a tradition (and no one in either of our families is even Southern) - we could always make it one though.

I had sushi three times this month before I remembered to have my camera along...

( It's still February, right? )

24. Sushi ☺
2. Groundhog, or someone/thing named Phil ☺
15. Sign of Love ☺
23. Something that represents where you live ☺
14. Heart ☺
12. Jelly beans ☺
16. Flowers ☺

Still in San Francisco - Even the furniture is trying to escape! I was informed, while taking pics of this building, that the city had sold this building, as it's been empty for about five years and the owners had not done anything to improve it. Also that it was the source of all the mother bedbugs, as there was a local invasion of them. The guy telling me this also told me he used to be the drummer for Natalie Cole's band and had travelled all over the world with her, but had fallen on hard times lately.

Apparently, this is sort of a piece of artwork as well as a decrepit building, but according to this website, it's sadly scheduled for demolition. ;_; 

( +3 )

11. Something in decay ☺
5. Writing on a wall ☺
4. Your favourite unhealthy snack ☺
17. Train ☺

And wouldn't you know it, I've had sushi three times this month, and every time, haven't had my camera with me! Grrr!

I am not a huge maker of things from scratch. I leave that to my spouse who's a trained chef; unfortunately, I seem to do a lot of the cooking. I am no snob when it comes to spaghetti sauce out of a jar, although I do go as far as trying to find brands that don't have corn syrup as the second ingredient (Ragu® makes me gag). Tonight, however, I found we were out, so I put together some from tomato sauce/paste, etc; although those still come out of a can, so I suppose it's not that much of a stretch. In the process, I found most of the cans in our cupboards were two or three years out of date! And considering the dates on canned goods when you buy them are several years in the future...man, we need to rotate our canned goods a little better. The main nod to "fresh" - the basil from my Thai Queen plant outside the back door.

Spaghetti sauce
Huntington Beach CA
Canon EOS 1000D
22 March 2009

Too tired to come up with dinner - so pancakes it is.

Kitchen
Huntington Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
29 December 2008

Above the steam table at our favorite nearby Chinese Mom-n-Pop takeout. It seems to be a contest as to how many coins patrons can stack up on Hotei's head. And I had never seen one of those lucky cats that had so many kittens and a big red fish before, so I had to look up what it meant. We like this place - the lady behind the steam table always remembers us and her eyes get big at how much the kids have grown (even though we only come in once a month or so). While the rest of my family always orders something that's already on the table, I like mu-shu, which is not. So she yells my order to her husband in the back, and he yells back at her; I don't understand what they're saying but I suspect he's swearing at having to cook something. And they go back and forth for a bit like that. Avalon usually asks something about the decorations; once she got a lesson on the Asian zodiac and found out she is a serpent child (her brothers are a tiger and a rabbit).

Hong Kong Bowl
Huntington Beach CA
Kyocera Switchback phone camera
09 October 2008

( angle )

Snack - when I was a kid, my dad got a package of these out of the machine every afternoon. He'd save all the wrappers and bring them home for me because they all had offers on the back. You could send away for free stuff for postage and certain number of wrappers. I had a stack of them about three inches tall before I finally sent away for a plastic Mr. Peanut bank. Now, they're three times as much and no free stuff anymore. Sigh.

Work
Los Alamitos, CA
Sharp VE-CG30
14 August 2008

Our scientific aide is leaving at the end of the week, so we took her out for lunch to a Pho restaurant. And had to shake our heads a bit at the vegetarian entrees...

Roomie's Teacher@Sea log: http://teacheratsea.noaa.gov/2007/eubanks/pdf/eubanks_log7.pdf

Well, we heard last night there was something haywire with a particular fan, which is pretty important. If it can't be fixed, we will have to go back to San Diego for parts. But for this morning, we are drifting in Pyramid Cove at the south end of San Clemente Island, while the engineer and his helpers take the thing apart and work on it.



This big crane seems like a bit of overkill...



There's been a story on the news about a freaking ship engine that fell off a truck on a San Diego freeway and crushed several cars - the chief scientist was joking that we should just go pick up the fan from that thing, because it certainly wasn't being used, right? In the meantime, some people are fishing for rockfish, but it's never long before the Jordan drifts off whatever reef they were over, and they start getting sanddabs (small flatfish).

Sanddabs.


But someone did get a nice lingcod.



One of the ensigns had the deckhands clean out the seachest, that is, a sort of boxy filter for the seawater intake on the bottom of the vessel. They found a handful of these little rock crabs inside it, They're normally found in the rocky subtidal; I'm thinking they settled out there as planktonic larvae and found enough to eat until they got to this size.



There was a small pod of common dolphins lounging around (at least they didn't seem to be moving around as fast as when we've seen them before), but again, they didn't come close enough to the ship to get a pic.

So, the morning was generally spent being a bit lazy. Sat and chatted with the Mexican biologist about our kids - turns out she's also working on her masters and her husband is getting his PhD - he encouraged her to come on this trip so he could go to Australia later with less guilt. Got a lot more read on JS & MN - the last volume really speeds up, and the story gets quite a bit more exciting. I know several people in my book group said that they liked the book, but it was possible to put it down and not go back to it right away, maybe pick up something else instead. That became harder to do as it approached the end.



The fan problem was finally fixed and we were able to make the afternoon set about 3:00 pm. I suited up to help set (well, my rubber boots and work vest), but all the spots were taken, so I took a lot of pictures instead.

How to set a longline -

First - Release the Kitties Highflier...



Take the gangions out of the barrels in the proper order, otherwise they will make a big rat's nest...



One or two people bait hooks, another hands the lines off...



(and makes sure they don't get tangled...)



These get handed to the clipper, who takes the line, holds the clip and drops the bait overboard (very important - you don't want the hook to grab anything on the boat or maybe somebody's boot as the line goes out). Every 50' there are a pair of crimped on metal stoppers about 6" apart; the trick is grab the line with your left to steady it and snap the clip on between the stoppers with your right, without making the winch operators slow or stop the line going out.



The rhythm is five hooks and then a float (which holds the line up near the surface). The floats clip on to a loop in the line, which is coiled in a basket, clipped end to end. Unclip the lines from each other, clip the float to line on one end...



Same thing, hold the clip, throw the float overboard, and snap it on the line between the stoppers. Don't drop it! Or they gotta get out the little boat to go get it - and everyone will razz you until someone else does it...



And so on, until you get to the end of the hooks, or maybe you run out of bait. Then you can sit down...



...and watch all the floats bobbing off into the distance...



Several large blues caught on the afternoon haul, and a very large Mola mola (ocean sunfish) about a meter long and two thirds that wide, which got a satellite tag. He forlornly flapped his fins back and forth and rolled his eyes until he was released. The biologist who tagged him told me they have weirdest science fiction-y slime on them which does NOT come off anything. And it stinks.



The shark's eyes are covered with a rag to keep it from panicking and thrashing...



Big tail...



For dinner, the cooks set up a BBQ on the aft deck, and grilled about six different kinds of meat. The menu is really set up for carnivores - there's meat in almost everything. I feel bad for one of the grad students, who's a vegetarian. Quite often there's not a lot for him to eat except a few side dishes, and quite a few of those have bacon or some other leftover meat in them, because they're trying to use up the leftovers. Even I feel like it's too much sometimes. I don't know whether they didn't get the message or what, but I think he's been on this cruise since it started. Poor guy was putting potato chips in a bun for dinner.



I can't believe it's been a week already.

	DFG Block	Lat:	Long:	Mako	Blue	Pelagic Stingray
Afternoon set :	867	32.693°N	118.382°W	3	7	0

Bless her heart. Avalon just made me a sandwich.

Spicy pepper jack cheese and mayo. On cinamon raisin bread.

Um. Thank you, dear.