Tues, Dec 9

9.23am - oatmeal w/ dried apricots and flax seeds from home, fresh fruit salad from the Vista Cafe downstairs, at work2.46pm - Indian leftovers, courtesy of Ritesh's mom, in the lunch room at work

2.46pm - some tasty Pfeffernuesse (German Lebkuchen-like christmas cookies) courtesy of Nadya, at work (thanks, Nady! We really like these!)

8.08pm - Korean appetizers at Tofu Ya, with Ritesh

8.13pm - soon tofu, at Tofu Ya, with Ritesh

8.13pm - dolsot bibimbap, which we couldn't finish and ended up taking home

8.13pm - and the steaming pork bulgogie

Monday, Oct 13 - The Day After

10.31am - some badly needed coffee at Patrick's Roadhouse, at the post-nuptial breakfast with Greg, Phinney, best man Sam, Ritesh and Alexi. Yes, you guessed it, I was too exhausted and hungover to go to work. I did genuinely have a sore throat and a bit of an earache, so I don't feel so bad...Patrick's Roadhouse - very un-LA in the best of all ways...

10.54am - the Surf Burger, with avocado, grilled mushroom and bacon, plus fries. Rarely has a burger tasted this good!

11.17am - we brought some leftover cupcakes for dessert - this is one of the berry ones that have whipped cream on top instead of that heavy cream cheese frosting, love them!

4.19pm - some more cupcakes at home, shared with Ritesh, after a long nap

5.42pm - Ritesh and I both bemoaned the absence of Korean food at the wedding yesterday, what with Phinney (and half the wedding party) being Korean. So we decided we just had to have some Korean food for dinner, in honor of Phinney and her family, so that the wedding would feel complete for us. So here we are at Tofu Ya, with a bunch of Korean appetizers and a Soon Tofu (Korean tofu soup). We also had some delicious pork bulgogie, but alas, I enjoyed it so much I forgot to take a picture :(

Fri, Sept 26 - another bomb threat, plus first Presidential debate

9.50m - a sample cookie from Starbucks that Cecy brought for me from her coffee run (thanks, Cecy!). We had an oh so important meeting with Finance this morning that we were scrambling to prepare for - they decided an hour before the meeting that all of a sudden it had become necessary to have all our information in binders (instead of on the environmentally friendly shared drive, where we put it), so there was much fussing and swearing over tabs and copying and title pages until we got everything done, five minutes before the meeting - at which point Finance decided to postpone the whole thing. Ah well.
It ended up being a good thing though because at what would have been halfway through the meeting, there was yet another bomb threat and we had to evacuate. Who knows, we might have gotten left behind in the conference room, and missed out on that 3-h-evacuation lunch break...12.34pm - I'd already had a ramen lunch planned w/Nadya (below is the Mabo ramen at Asahi, plus some tsukemono - pickled cucumber), otherwise I would have joined the other MGMers either at Pink Taco for margaritas, or at the movies...

1.46pm - we were supposed to call the emergency hotline at 2pm to see if it was safe to return to work, so I I had some time to kill and went home for some cherry-lychee-vodka sorbet for dessert

4.35pm - the hotline wasn't updated until 2.40pm, so I didn't get back to work until 3.10. And honestly, nobody got much work done for the rest of the day, what with the bomb threat adrenaline, the resentment of actually having to come back to work afterwards, the anticipation of the first presidential debate tonight and, oh, the sky falling down economy-wise. I'd had only half of my soup for lunch (took the rest home for Ritesh), so I got hungry again and went for a little stroll over to Breadbar to pick up some baguette for tonight, and look what I found there: a fabulous, excellent rhubarb tart! To think that I could have missed it!

7.25pm - Korean pancakes, at Greg and Phinney's, watching the debate, w/ Ritesh

7.25pm - some white wine from the neighborhood

7.27pm - grapes, brie, and a buckwheat baguette from Breadbar

7.28pm - some bruschetta w/ olive tapenade

7.45pm - the next bottle - Ritesh got French wine to match...

8.09pm - ...the pates I'd brought from France (pork-hazelnut on the left, duck w/ green pepper on the right). The wine was good but pate I can live without. Reminds me a bit too much of the liver sausage I had to eat as a kid in Germany. Brrr....

9.00pm - ha!

10.14pm - mint ice cream sandwiches for dessert, while agonizing over Obama's perceived weaknesses (lecturing! too much complexity! going off on dissertations! and why oh why did he have to keep telling McCain that he was right?). But the polls look better than we expected, so phew.

Tues, Sept 16 - Take a Bao

10.02am - I think this was a plum-walnut yogurt. At work.11.48am - banana soy milk, at work

1.33pm - the signature BBQ pork bao from Take a Bao, at work.

1.34pm - the famous pomegranate steak bao from Take a Bao, at work. These things are tasty, but much tinier than they look.

1.34pm - some side salad from Take a Bao, at work. Kind of like Chinese chicken salad without the chicken and the tangerines and the wonton crisps.

2.25pm - lunch left me hungry. Haven't had one of these in a while... at work.

6.51pm - leftover rasam, at home

6.57pm - more leftovers, at home

7.10pm - just a tiny bite...

7.13pm - left the last piece of cake fir Ritesh, and had some of these instead...

Mon, Sept 15

8.18am - a nice bowl of rasam w/ some brown rice, at home. Nothing like some spicy soup for breakfast to wake you up. 11.01am - blackberry sheep milk yogurt, at work.

1.21pm - Ritesh's Indian potatoes and Phinney's mom's Korean noodle salad, at home.

1.39pm - leftover birthday cake, at home. Somebody's got to eat it, right?

6.03pm - a Jalapeno dog from Wetzel's Pretzels, outside work, with Ritesh, before the employee screening of THE DARK KNIGHT, which was totally lost on me.

Sun, Sept 14 - Korean BBQ on the beach

12.57pm - Sveta Auntie's famous tulsi-mint tea, with tulsi and mint from Ritesh's mom's garden, plus some honey, at Ritesh's parents' house in Anaheim, with Sveta, Madhu, Vijay, Prashant and Suzanne. Sveta and Madhu are in town from the Houston area, from where they had to evacuate because of Hurricane Ike.

1.55pm - Ritesh's belated birthday lunch w/ the family, at Thai Nakorn in the O.C. This is some very good green papaya salad, some red curry that everyone liked, some pad Thai and some of Ritesh's fish...
1.51pm -... seen here in its intimidating entirety: a whole, bbq'd catfish
1.55pm - I'm more one to go for fish cakes...
1.58pm - the yellow curry, by the time it made it down to me...
2.02pm - a cup of Sveta Auntie's soup
2.03pm - a great eggplant with a very nice kick to it, as Madhu Uncle put it
3.19pm - more birthday cake at Ritesh's parents' house, still with the whole family
3.19pm - a whole coconut filled w/ a vanilla-coconut custard that we got to go from Thai Nakorn. Loved it!
6.14pm - from Anaheim to Dockweiler State Beach near LA International Airport. This beach is interesting for two reasons: a) it's so close to the airport that you're literally in the flight corridor of departing planes, and b) it's apparently the only beach between Malibu and Long Beach where you're allowed to make a fire and have a BBQ.
6.15pm - which is exactly what we were here for!
6.15pm - apparently, it's Korean Thanksgiving today, and we're here for a long-awaited Korean BBQ organized by several of Ritesh's co-workers
6.51pm - all surrounded by an intriguing audio-visual panorama - the adults were playing Identify This Flight (somebody swore they recognized the 6pm BA flight to London), the kids were just having a ball
6.51pm - little boys LOVE airplanes!
6.54pm - the first fire-roasted Korean sweet potato and spring onion w/ some nice salad
6.57pm - then some glorious Korean BBQ beef, kimchee, salad, and more fire-roasted Korean sweet potato
6.56pm - all while the sun was setting in front of us...
7.13pm - ... and the moon rising behind us
7.34pm - fire roasting marshmallows
7.45pm - a s'mores, a time-honored American treat consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate sandwiched between two graham cracker cookies. The chocolate melts due to the heat of the marshmallow, and it all becomes one happy, gooey mess.
what a great night!