When I was younger, I never thought I’d be around to be 40 years old. Particularly when I was repeatedly told it wasn’t okay to be attracted to girls, I pretty much figured, suspected, that I wouldn’t last long. This superstition stuck with me. As of today, I made it! 40 years old! Being around is a good birthday gift. It gets better.
Posted in happiness
Tagged 40 years old, always a bit of drama, birthday, it gets better, lgbt
A few times I’ve been asked, by friends visiting, what to do or where to go. Here are a few ideas gathered up over the past 15 years.
Always carry a scarf or a hat or a layer. A day can go from 60degrees and sunny to 40degree foggy evening within 20 minutes.
Food! There’s so much good food in San Francisco. Too much to write about. It’s written about everywhere all the time. 7×7′s list of 100 Things To Eat Before You Die is a good start.
I saw a photo of Sub Rosa Saffron vodka and thought I’d try to make something similar for a friend who loves vodka. The first batch wasn’t quite right with too much turmeric flavor and not enough heat from the jalapeño. The second batch stunned my senses. I mixed it with some French cognac-based orange liqueur, lime juice, Regan’s orange bitter, and a touch of simple syrup and thought of Veruca Salt’s Golden Ticket.
Saffron Citrus Spice Infusion
Note: I wanted to use fresh turmeric but couldn’t find any. I found dried slices of turmeric in the bulk section of Rainbow Grocery
750ml bottle vodka (I use Skyy)
Clean glass jar for infusing
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 mandarin orange
1 jalapeño pepper
1-2 inches fresh ginger
Pinch of saffron
2 slices dried tumeric (or fresh sliced turmeric might be even better)
Toast cumin seeds and coriander seeds in a pan until fragrant. Let cool.
Peel the zest off a mandarin orange (or other small orange-y citrus) in large strips
Remove seeds from a jalapeño and chop
Peel and slice 5-10 ginger coins (more if ginger is smaller, less if ginger is bigger)
In a jar combine the toasted cumin and coriander with orange zest, chopped jalapeño, ginger coins, 2 small slices of dried turmeric, and a pinch of saffron.
Cover with 750ml vodka, seal the jar with a lid, shake, put in a cool dark place for 2 days, strain through a coffee filter. Keep an eye on it and taste it periodically — I think it’s probably best to strain it when the saffron loses its color or after 2 days, whichever happens first.
The recipe for this Golden Ticket cocktail comes from a recipe I saw on Sub Rosa Spirits
Shake with ice and strain:
2 oz saffron citrus spice vodka
1 oz orange liqueur (any light, clean orange liqueur is probably best)
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
2 dashes orange bitters (I used Regan’s)
The ingredients:
The final golden color:
I read on all of my devices (iPhone, iPad, Droid) using iBooks and Kindle apps, but mostly the Kindle app. I particularly like reading on an iPhone or Droid while standing on MUNI or BART (public transportation in San Francisco) because I can easily hold on to an overhead bar, hold iPhone or Droid, read AND turn pages all with the same hand. That’s pretty difficult to do with a paper book or newspaper.
The iPad improved my experience of reading in bed.
If I’m on my side, in bed, I can only read the odd (or even-numbered pages) with the book propped on its side:
Reading in bed, old school
That’s something that always frustrated me as a kid, reading under the covers with a flashlight and having to prop up the book more to read the other side of the page, or holding the book open with one tired hand:
Holding book open. Tiring.
I love reading in bed with the iPad because it props up the “whole book” at the same angle.
iPad improves the experience
I also like reading to my 6-year-old kid in the dark, using an iPad, as she goes to sleep. I turn the brightness all the way down, and it’s still too bright in the dark, so I also turn the brightness all the way down in the iBooks or Kindle app. I sit in a chair by her bed and read a chapter of a book to her (currently I’m reading the Ramona books to her). It’s so much quieter and easier than a paper book with pages to turn and a booklight to adjust.
Reading on iPad vs. reading on paper
A friend recently mentioned how useful the dictionary is in the Kindle and iBooks app. I’d never used the dictionary until my kid asked what a word meant, I couldn’t think of an immediate easy definition, and I remembered I could highlight a word to get a definition, and it worked!
My kid is a good reader, but she doesn’t yet read chapter books on the iPad. She checks out the paper version from the library and she enjoys using and making different bookmarks for the paper books. I wonder when she’ll start reading more digitally. Probably just a few years.
I have some books in more than one format (paper and Kindle, or paper and iBooks). That’s a bit of a racket — paying twice for the same book content just to have it both on paper and digitally. I hope someday I can pay for the content in one format and choose to have it delivered in multiple formats – particularly if I want to share a book with someone who doesn’t have a device running the proprietary app (iBooks, Kindle).
