Long Weekend

While not as long as it should have been (I write this Sunday morning at work while waiting for the gear to reboot), the Thanksgiving holiday weekend did give me lots to be thankful for. Each day began with a ride and culminated in a nice meal or other social event. In between, there was sloth. You can understand why I'd want one more day.

Thursday was the first ride back on the Look in a couple of weeks. Commuting has been it for me for riding lately, so it was very nice to get out to the beach in some spandex, switch between quick circles and a big gear, fight the wind, and crush some Freds. After snarfing some leftovers and taking a very long, very hot shower, BoW and I headed to friends-who-are-more-like-family's house for traditional turkey feast. And it was good.

Friday's ride was nearly twenty miles of MTB out at Pt. Mugu State Park. After a long, gentle six mile climb up Sycamore Canyon Fire Road, BoW and I tore down the Sin Nombre/Two Foxes trails, most of the way back up it, looped around on the road and went back down again. What a great way to spend a couple of hours in the low-angled, midday sun of  November. Plus, I even successfully rode through the hardest trail feature (a steep, hard left whoop) at the top of Sin Nombre for the first time.

That evening, we went to arguably the best music club (at least in terms of the space itself) in town to bask in the warm thrill of confusion at the hands of The Melvins and two of their side projects Porn, and Big Business. Added to that was the extra bonus of reconnecting with an old friend and bandmate JUS and his wife, neither of whom had we seen in over 5 years. Porn was better than hoped, offering an onslaught of noise backed by what could only be described as a metal drumline. Big Business had only the one drummer, but made up for it with thick, meaty, Slayeresque bass riffs complemented by obligato nonsense guitar. More to my taste than BoW's. The Melvins current two-drummer lineup (same as Porn) is a joy to see in an intimate setting such as The Troubadour. You really haven't lived until you see symmetric metal drumming where not only the kits are opposed, but by virtue of one being a lefty, the drummers are as well.

For food porn, I offer these pics from our lunch outing to Culver City's own Pho Show. Before you discount them because of the cutesy name, let me just say that this is no Absolutely Phobulous. It's a family-run business which is just beginning to find its way, zeroing in on a menu, offering late-night hours, adding delivery, and dialing in a consistent flavor to its central offering, the broth. 

While we can all agree that from a political and humanitarian standpoint, Colonialism was a major faux pas, the creole culinary traditions it begat are generally as beautiful as the foreign lands that caused so many Europeans to go native in the time of empire. A great example of this is the delicious bánh xèo crepe. Crispy, eggy, stuffed with veggies and pork, and dipped in fish sauce, those frogs never had it so good as they did in Saigon.

The main event, though, is the pho. The broth is rich and tasty, and just requiring of condiment to make it your own. Meat ingredients are prefect, and on this occasion, I went with just meat balls. 

 

BoW elected brisket, tendon, and tripe. In pho, the tripe has a remarkably clean and palatable flavor. The fuzzy texture is a bit like extra-spongy tongue. I highly recommend this as an entry to tripe, especially if the iron-rich, tomato gaminess of menudo has turned you off in the past. That, or deep frying it in the French style...

For last supper on the long weekend, I cleaned out the fridge by making some soup. The chicken I was thawing to make more stock and potentially some bbq was still solid, so I went with the last of the homemade stock BoW whipped up for soup a couple of weekends ago. I had mirepoix on hand, added a turnip, some fresh parsley, some leftover chicken from tacos on Tuesday, the leftover green beans (retaining some of the mustard sauce the BoW made from the Ladies' recipe) and topped it with a crisped piece of prosciutto leftover from homemade pizza on Monday. Served it with a warm baguette. We do eat well.