Kimchi

I've made no secret of my love of cabbage.
Or at least, I've tried not be be secretive of it.  Or at least it's an open secret?

Cabbage,  brussels sprouts, cauliflower,  basically any cruciferous veggie.

Now I'm branching out to Kimchi, the Korean pickled cabbage dish.  I love Kimchi when I have Korean food, but I never remember to get it at the store, or they never seem to have it when I'm looking for it.

I did the hard part about two weeks ago. Let me rephrase that to put "hard" in quotes, because it was dead simple.   I read a bunch of recipes online, and gathered that it's not a terribly exact science, so I combined a couple of things that sounded good.  The only thing I would do differently is to salt the cabbage first separately, otherwise it bleeds off a lot of liquid that if your jars are full you have to decant.

I chopped up a Napa cabbage in big chunks.  Grated a Daikon radish with a cheese grater.  Chopped up some scallions that were wilting in the veggie drawer,  added an inch of ginger and a 3 cloves of garlic, 2 Tbs of red pepper flakes.  1/4 cup kosher Salt, soy sauce, a good squirt of soy sauce, a Tbs or so of the liquid that separates off of yogurt and a squirt of fish sauce.   Packed it into jars and left it on the counter for a couple of days.  Transfered it to the fridge and waited.

The other night I was digging around for dinner ideas, and I opened up the jar and tasted it.

Salty, spicy, crunchy, YUM.  More please!

I had to hold myself back from finishing the whole pint jar I opened up in one sitting.  I should have made more.  Fortunately now that I know how easy it is to make, I can whip up a new batch any time. Which might have to be tomorrow.  After all it takes a week or so, and I don't think this batch will last that long.

Elegant red mixtie

This woman was so elegant in her dress trousers as she waited to enter traffic at Charles Circle.
Unfortunately I was basically in motion, so the photo isn't the best.
I'm lucky that in Cambridge (and Boston) there are an increasing number of people who ride in their work clothes, and I'm resolved to try to capture more pictures of them doing it.  Bear with me as I learn to do it better

DIY and the need for Expertise.

I've been taking Robert apart, and starting to build up his successor. I spent all weekend messing, gave myself an anti-manicure cleaning the chain first with PB-Blaster and then simple green. Anti- in that my hands may never be the same again. So much for the career in hand modeling!


So I've been thinking about DIY. Then I read a post on the excellent blog DFW Point to Point about having service done at a bike shop. Steve- I love the line about how after working on cars, bikes are easy. Being able to do it indoors is key.

On one hand, I'm enough of my father's daughter to never pass up a project that requires the purchase of new tools. And in this world, there's a lot of yahoos that work at bike shops, and I'm pretty sure that if they can figure it out, I can. On the other hand, I'm busy, and sometimes it takes me a while to get projects done, and sometimes it's worth it to pay to get it done faster, especially if it's something that disables the bike while it's in process..

However, even the most yahoo infested bike shop has a grizzled veteran, who can help the yahoo out when there's a funky trick to getting something to work. For the rest of us, there's the fantastic legacy of Sheldon Brown. I can't say how many bike repairs I've blundered through with my laptop open next to me, checking between operations to make sure I've got it right.

But Sheldon is gone now, and he didn't write about EVERYTHING on bikes. Sometimes you get stuck, and it doesn't make sense, and you need someone to help. And sometimes there's a trick, and sometimes you just know by feel after the hundredth time you do it. So sometimes you need to talk to someone with expertise.

Saturday afternoon, after I got the chain case on the new frame and put the left side crank on was one of those times. - The damn thing whacked the chainstay with every revolution. I had spread the frame to accept the 8 speed internal geared hub, but I couldn't believe that the tolerances were that close. So I packed it all into the Scientist's car, and headed to Metonomy Vintage bikes/ Cambridge Used bicycles where they can probably re-assemble a Raleigh BB in 5 minutes blindfolded, they do so many of them.


And Ed and Vin, bless their hearts, despite the fact that they were crazy busy, put it on a stand, looked at it, scratched their heads, looked at it again, and realized, that I'd installed the cups so that the whole spindle was shifted over. AND I had the crank on backwards (it looks symmetric, but it's not quite- you can tell because there's a heron on one side).

At a lot of shops they would have told me to drop it off and they'd look at it on Wednesday. After all, they get paid to do that work, why should they give it away for free. I really appreciate that they were willing to give a few minutes and the advantage of their expertise.  I'm really really lucky to be part of a bike community, where people are willing to share their knowledge, instead of guarding it jealously as the precious commodity that it is.

And you know, customer service generosity pays. I'm not really in the market for one of the reconditioned used bikes that are their stock in trade. But I try to buy parts there when I can (they're one of those places that regularly stocks brake shoes for Minerva). And whenever someone tells me they're looking for a cheap, simple bike, I steer them away from a big box, or even a regular bike store and point them there. My dental hygenist for an example from this week, a grad student in the Scientist's lab a couple of weeks ago, coworkers. And now you, gentle reader. I've received no compensation for this recommendation. Except for the kind sharing of expertise, freely given.

HIT

So it happened.

Something I've been worrying about for weeks.

Since the weather turned and all the newbies came out to play.

I was hit by another bike.

I was riding along the Charles River bike path, crossing Mass Ave.  The pedestrian signal had just changed from walk to flashing orange,  and there were probably 20 people (bikes and peds) in the crosswalk, and I know that light has a long warning cycle, so I proceeded at a measured pace into the crosswalk.  Wham!
A woman travelling along the stopped cars over the Mass Ave bridge ran the red light.  I don't know if she was just planning on creaming any pedestrian who happened to be in the crosswalk.  I suspect she didn't think that far ahead.

Fortunately she had almost stopped, and I was almost out of her path, so she just clipped my rear wheel.  Still.  It could have been so much worse.  What if she'd hit a baby carriage?

I yelled at the top of my lungs, (and believe me, for a 5'6" 140 pound gal, I got a set of lungs).
"What the HELL are you doing?!"   You have a RED LIGHT!!  There are PEDESTRIANS Crossing!"

She said "sorry, so sorry" and rode off.
Still at the top of my lungs ( and believe me about 100 people within a 100 yard range heard me)
"Bad enough to have to worry about getting hit by a car, but to have to worry about getting hit by a bicycle?"
I really hope she was shamed and will think twice.
Because it could have been so much worse.

Minerva Goes to Brookline

This morning the Scientist headed off to Bermuda for a field research trip, and I headed to the Dentist.  No,  life is not fair.

My new dentist is in Coolidge Corner Brookline,  which is a tough ride through Brighton/ Allston from my house.  It’s not that far, it’s just that a) traffic is pretty bad along the arterials in that part of town b) to keep people from cutting through the neighborhoods, the side streets are all one ways to keep you out, and c) the arterials are lined with parked cars and the occasional double parked delivery vehicle.  Add a busy bus line, a couple of train tracks and an intersection where two bikers have been killed,  and I was not looking forward to it.  

To make matters worse,  I took Robert apart this weekend and started putting his parts on the new bike frame.  I’m about 1/3 done, which means that I’ll be riding Minerva probably the rest of the week.  While Minerva is lovely to look at and a pleasure to ride,  I’m still not as completely comfortable with the gearing and the braking as I’d like to be riding in tough traffic.  I was planning on biking mostly on the bike path this week to compensate.

I left super early, partly in hopes that I would miss the worst traffic, and also to allow time if I needed to detour or otherwise re-evaluate.   And….. It wasn’t bad.

I did become a pedestrian to make the left turn at the intersection where two bikers have been killed.  People run the light, and jackrabbit their left turns, and I just didn’t feel comfortable hanging out in the middle of the intersection with my left hand hanging out, waiting for a break in traffic. After that hitch, things went surprisingly smoothly, and there were even some of the new bike lanes along Harvard street.  Evidently they were just painted.  Like over the weekend.           

I pulled up a few blocks short of my destination,  30 minutes early, and decided to grab a coffee- only to realize that I didn’t have a lock!  My normal lock was in a pile with the rest of Robert’s accessories in the basement.  There wasn’t time to go back and at 8AM the chances of finding a lock for sale in the neighborhood were nil.  

So I headed to the dentist’s office, found a secluded location back in a corner of a parking garage, tucked Minerva behind a jersey barrier, and went up to the office.  I told the receptionist that I was worried about it,  and she said- bring it on up- we have people do that all the time!  I knew I liked this dentist!

When I brought Minerva up, and she realized how big she is, the receptionist balked a little,  and we ended up putting her in a unused corridor that leads to the emergency exit stairs.  

An hour later, I emerged, teeth clean and shiny, to find Minerva waiting for me.  Biking in Boston isn't so bad!

Riding in your work clothes

It was much cooler today, although still warm enough to wear my Architect shoes: a pair of Rem-Koolhaas designed Mobius shoes.  I'm going to blog a picture of them without my foot in them because I'm too shy to put a picture of my ratty toenails up on the internet.  The footbed, sole and heel wrap around in a continuous loop- hence the name.

They were surprisingly excellent biking shoes.  I've had problems sometimes when biking in flat bottomed shoes that my foot creeps forward until my arch is over the pedal instead of the ball of my foot.
These, partly because of rubberized soles, had no problem with that.  They were also incredibly stiff and very efficient feeling.
Anyway,  what I wanted to blog about was as I was riding up Cambridge street, I was waiting in traffic, instead of lane splitting my way up to the head of the queue.
A biker came up and instead of passing me, stopped and waited just behind me, which is a little uncommon.   Just because I think it's rude to cut in line, doesn't mean I have hopes of getting others to share my view.  He followed me for a couple of blocks, through a tricky bit of vehicular cycling (passing right turning cars on the left etc).  I was a bit surprised that he hadn't passed me, but was riding aggressively enough to do the VC stuff.  We ended up stopped at the light at the top of Government center, and I struck up a conversation about the flower beds there.  About a minute in, I realized he was wearing a clerical collar, and I asked where he was biking to.  He was going to work at St. Paul's Cathedral.   I tried to take a picture, but unfortunately the light changed, and we had to hop up on the median.  He was reasonably gracious about it (what was he going to do- curse at me?)  but I think he thought I was taking his picture for the novelty "Priests on bikes!"

But mainly I wanted to show, as I always do, that its possible to bike in the clothes you work in.
Unfortunately the picture doesn't show his collar- you'll have to take my word for it.  But he was gone before I could check the photo.

Park Serve?

Any takers for a meet-up/ volunteer morning group with the DCR's Park Serve Day?
Again, it's the morning of April 24th.  If the weather is good we could have a short ride along the river trail, a potluck picnic lunch either along the (newly cleaned up) riverside, or in my backyard in Harvard Square.

please let me know, because I need to coordinate with their group coordinator if there's more than a couple of us.