Another dead end

One of the places on the list looked promising, the Bangkok Market in San Jose a little south of downtown. Drove out there, it's a warehouse, wholesale distribution center, no access except for 18-wheelers. Sigh.

Meanwhile I have added the makings for Tom Ka Gai, my favorite Thai soup, to the list of things to make this weekend, and stopped off at Ranch99 to get lemon grass, galanga, straw mushrooms and  coconut milk. Tomorrow I'll get low sodium chicken stock and some roast duck, which seems to me a much better soup meat than chicken breast. :-) Plenty of places nearby for those items.

Also bought some Miracle Whip at Ranch99, what I had in the fridge expired sometime in the Victorian era. Deviled eggs tomorrow too.

May make one more foray for preserved turnip, as it seems to be a popular Vietnamese item, and there is a market not far away which does that particular cuisine.  I do have a recipe now, but it takes 4-5 days to create an edible batch.

Went to a friend's and hooked up her replacement receiver/amp. It was a challenge, she was sold the wrong model. She was replacing her late brother's high-end surround sound digital unit, and bought a stereo analog unit. I wish she had asked me first. I was able to hook it up and make it work, and she can't hear the difference, but I sure can. Since the right model would cost a lot more, and she loves the sound as is, she'll keep it. The old unit died because she has a plant hanging above t, and when she waters the plant it drips onto the vents and into the receiver. I told her to go to TAP Plastics and have them make a little shelf-like thing to protect the vents without sealing them off.

Photo shoot was very good tonight, it was at what is now my favorite studio in Sunnyvale, the hosts have learned how to keep everything orderly and still fun. The model learned a lot - this was a very low cost shoot because she is trying to build up a portfolio and break into the business. Six photogs plus the two hosts, we shot for 2 minutes at a time with short breaks between rounds for the model to put on different outfits and freshen up. The model has pretty eyes and a great complexion, but she's a bit tsaftig and un-toned. I think she looked best in tight jeans. We kept the lighting simple, which worked well.

No ral plans for tomorrow except a tiny bit of shopping and a lot of cooking and staying inside,  out of the storm.

Hailey

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Originally uploaded by how3ird.

From Friday's model shoot in Sunnyvale. Follow the link to see the rest of them.

Huevos Diablos

Or something like that. Started the day making deviled eggs, which turned out okay.  Made way too many, wonder if I can freeze them?

Watched some more of the Free Libya Channel (aka CNN, which seems to only have the capacity to report one story per week, over and over and over again).  Watched some of the NFL Combine exercises, but they were pretty boring today. I guess QBs are tomorrow, except for the press conference, during which both QBs who Had Issues™ in the past declined to comment on anything in the past. Apparently when teams interview them in private they will come clean. That's the spin they both put on it, but I have my doubts.

Did some surgical strike shopping, and came up empty at the Japanese and Korean groceries. The Korean one had pickled everything except turnip. They had coarse sea salt, which is good for pickling, and vinegar, ditto. I needed a couple of mundane things, and started heading for Safeway, but saw a Lucky's en route and went there instead. Ran into one of my buddies from the last job. He too had been there on contract for a year with no hint of being made full-time.  He said he and the one other long-time contractor are planning on leaving before what happened to me happens to them.

There's a nice Starbucks next door, I set up the netbook, but it was installing Windows 7 SP1, which was going to take forever, and they had the place way over-heated, so I packed up and came home and finished the update there.

Chicken soup for dinner, banana mango smoothie for dessert.

I shredded the two turnips I had bought earlier, and packed the shreds in sea salt. In the morning it should be ready to add vinegar and garlic and put aside till next week. I've never worked with turnips before, they have a very strong smell when shredded.

No plans for tomorrow.  Will probably make some Tom Ka and freeze it. I suppose I can make a batch of Pot Thai without the turnip stuff. It's an optional ingredient, and I have all the others. Oh wait, I'm out of eggs. I knew there was a reason I should not have deviled all 10 I had in the fridge. Easy enough to buy more, though I'm inclined to not go shopping again for a while.