Hikes... hiking... yeah - we are still at one hike for the year.
But Saturday was the first nice day in a long time and we made the most of it. Anya took inspiration from Mark Bittman's recent burger posting and combined it with her mastery of his bread recipe to form the ultimate burger in a roll. Combine that with sun and a back deck and you have one nice lunch.
Then we finished up the day with a stroll over to watch the Twilight Criterium in Ballard. Luckily the only crash we saw was near the end of the women's final race. All in all, it was a good set of races. The final category ended in a 4 abreast dash for the finish line. I can't wait till next year!
A quick morning trip up to Olallie State Park to see Twin Falls. The lack of snow makes me wonder how early the hiking season will start. The bigger question of course is whether or not I'll be able to get my lazy ass in shape to enjoy an early, or late hiking season.
So here the pictures of our days in Budapest. Of course there is a slight cap at the start as Anya was recovering in the hotel room for the first day, but after that the weather was nice and I think I can safely say we pretty much saw everything there was to see in Budapest... except maybe for a few of their world famous baths.
Yes, yes. Two months after starting our trip to Eastern Europe, I'm finally starting to post the rest of the pictures. We'll start with our first three days in Prague. I'll save the commentary for later, but as you can see we got really lucky with the weather. Now the question is, can I finish Vienna and Budapest in less than a month? Stay tuned.
Bumping down the road in a bus to Brno, hopefully to be followed by a transfer to Vienna. The bus is running late due to a slow boarding and a passenger who got on the wrong bus. Sigh. So far so good though, here is a brief collection of pictures from Prague.
Well we've both have been buried under work for the past... really, really long time. So while the heat wave of '09 was still around, we decided to go for a little sunset flight over Elliott Bay. It took a little while because the first time they deployed the chute, the whole thing went right, literally and then directly into the water. Not a confidence builder. But none the less, we took flight. (Note: When sitting on the ass-end of a boat, your ass will get wet too!) Downtown Seattle at sunset and 300 feet is a really cool view. Next time I'll have to take the camera up with me.
Half a year later we have something worth posting about, Anya's PhD. From the icy grip of winter emerged a successful defense in February. Fast forward to a hot, hot day in June for the UW Commencement... perfect for a heavy weight, dark gown.
2009 came, 2008 went. It rained. We ate. I made ugly, ugly noises at Kerry Park that sounded like animals in the midst of a stampede. All in all, not too bad for Seattle.
Well it seems maybe this will be it... for now. We ventured over to Magnolia to see the activity there. It snowed through the afternoon. Late that night we went for a walk, having expected all the snow to be over, but it started again. So now Day 4, I have studded tires being put on the car. Of course that means everything will immediately melt.
Well, if it doesn't warm up in the morning, things will get really interesting. We went out tonight to walk around and it was pouring snow... in Seattle... at sea level. The fresh snow is covering a thick layer of ice underneath. Fun for all!
This afternoon we finally made some fresh pasta for the first time: pumpkin ravioli. My new oxo rolling pin rulez! It made rolling dough into smooth thin sheets super easy. Maybe one day I will be ready to make a committment to a pasta maker, but for now I'll stick with with the basic tools. I didn't follow any particular recipe. The dough was regular egg dough (400 grams of flour, 4 eggs, salt), the stuffing was pumpkin, with some sage and parmesan. We ended up with 60 ravioli and froze 45 of them. The other 15 were cooked, served with cream sauce and some leftover prosciutto butter chicken. Check out the photos here:
About two weeks ago I started baking our own bread. Mostly because all of our groceries are delivered by Amazon, but they do not carry any breads from Grand Central bakery (they do sell bread from Macrina, but we don’t like it). First off, I am NOT a baker. Really, I am not. I never make dough and even when I make pizza or pies, I always buy dough from Trader Joe’s. So baking bread from scratch was really venturing into an entirely new territory for me. I finally decided to do it after reading this recipe in NYT. It looked easy enough, so I decided to give it a try. It turned out to be very easy, delicious and very successful, even for a beginning baker with zero experience like me. And there’s almost no clean up. This weekend we decided to document the process, so that you’d see that that home-made bread we’ve been telling you about is for real…
Step five: fold the dough with a spatula 2-3 times, shape it into a ball and put it out on a mat (you can put it on a piece of parchment paper instead, this will make moving it around much easier later on). Oil the dough.
Step seven: heat the oven to 450 degrees, witha heavy dutch oven inside. After about 30+ minutes, when the oven is hot, slide the dough into the dutch oven and cover. Bake for 30 minutes.
NOTE: this weekend Amazon was out of King Arthur Flour, so I ordered Stone Bur (sp?) brand instead. The bread tastes ok, but NOT as good as the bread made with KA flour. So when Amazon has it back in stock, I plan to buy a few extra packages.
My first "political" rant, ever. It may be my last, ever. We recently attended a Seattle council meeting discussing possible rule changes covering townhouse construction in Seattle. The meeting was titled: "Townhomes – Can the Patient be Saved?" Afterwards we felt strong enough about the discussion, we decided to write Councilmember Clark a letter. Here it is:
Dear Councilmember Clark,
My wife and I attended the June 7th PLUNC meeting up on Capitol Hill. I want to start by thanking you for organizing and publicizing this meeting, we found that it was very informative.
Although we are not as informed on the subject of townhouses as many professionals and community activists who were present at the meeting, I felt compelled to write to your office to give my opinion concerning the issue of townhouses in Seattle. I want to make my opinion known because I believe that my wife and I, both 30-something year old working professionals who are starting a family, are fairly representative of the demographic who is interested and is likely to buy a townhouse. I feel that we can express some concerns and interests shared by this demographic. Currently, we are condo owners who live in the Interbay area and we are planning to buy a house one day somewhere in the Seattle area. We had been considering purchasing a townhouse, although not any more. We walked into the meeting on Saturday very open-minded, even with a favorable opinion towards townhouses, and walked out convinced that the patient should not be saved. We believe that with respect to both density and affordability condominiums, as a form of ownership, offer a much better solution.
I will not belabor the much-discussed issue of esthetics here, which has received so much attention in the meeting and the online forums. What really concerns me is that townhouses, as they are now built, are practically designed to be an easy, liability-free money maker for the developers, while leaving a home buyer with all the consequences of poor design and construction. What I find particularly telling is that practically all successful examples of townhouses mentioned in the meeting, like the Comstock street houses on Queen Anne or the projects from the Portland design competition, were actually condominiums, not townhouses. They can be referred to as ‘townhouse style condominiums’, if one so chooses, but it doesn’t change the fact that they sit on a fee simple lot, share a common parking structure, common grounds and have a condominium association which plans and organizes long-term maintenance and upgrades of common elements.
Condominiums, as a form of ownership and organization, are superior to private townhouses on a number of accounts:
Parking and green spaces: the parking mess in the townhouses seems largely due to the lot subdivision and lack of common parking structure – it is simply not possible when lots are subdivided. These lot sizes are far too small to allow for anything meaningful. Same goes for green spaces – the ability to have common or green spaces and flexible positioning of structures can only occur in larger lot sizes. Since it’s obvious that a majority of solutions to dense living issues require the use of common spaces on private property, we believe it is clear that condominium form of ownership is a better answer. Whether it is a shared courtyard space or a joint underground parking area with shared driveway access to the street: you cannot do this in a 4-pack style townhomes owned by individuals. We had no opinion before, but we do believe now that there should be a moratorium on unit lot subdivision, if not an outright ban. Additionally, as plans from Portland’s competition illustrate, truly flexible design of multi-family complexes can be achieved on lots that are at least 8000 sq.ft. lots of larger. We believe that the city of Seattle should require developers to build on such double lots, instead of a single 4000 sq.ft. lot.
Holding the developer accountable: the most telling part of the meeting was when Dan Duffus decried the necessity of having a 7-year liability when building a condominium and how this made it unprofitable for developers to … wait… actually stand by their product! Having no comparable liability for townhouses practically invites and encourages poor construction practices and dishonest builders. Lack of such liability does not serve the needs of the public; it simply increases the ease with which the builders can make a profit. It also further disenfranchises townhouse buyers, most of whom are already on the lower-end of the income spectrum: these people are stuck fixing builder’s short-cuts and outright defects when they become apparent years later, with seemingly no recourse against the builder.
Maintenance and affordability: as trivial as it sounds, there is a safety in numbers. Townhouses are sold as being free of pesky associations, and that’s fine for now. But in 10 to 20 years, what will these townhouse clusters look like? If a home owners association is not setup right away (and they typically aren’t) it becomes much more problematic down the road. Without all parties in a townhouse cluster being required to enter a joint agreement, how do people expect the upkeep on these crowded shared areas to occur? Also, I think that developers love the thought of selling to individual townhome owners instead of condominium association members, because it’s easier to deal with people who do not have the support of others. Again, these buyers are especially vulnerable since they tend to be entry-level buyers. With the issue of long-term maintenance in mind, the much-proclaimed affordability of a townhouse is really not true: a buyer purchases an inferior product, ends up with no organized maintenance plan and, due to the design of the townhouse, is stuck maintaining 3 exterior walls and a roof – all items that would normally be the responsibility of a condominium association.
Stairs (why flats are better): you are probably surprised to see stairs mentioned here, especially since city regulations can’t do anything about the interior design proper. But stairs, the hallmark of townhouse design, in fact spell out “lack of accessibility and efficiency”. We believe that multi-storied flats not skinny townhouses are a more livable option. Let’s face it: townhomes have a large amount of square footage dedicated to stairs. Stairwells are not great living spaces. Stairwells are not great for the disabled or the elderly. Flats give a higher degree of space usage than vertical townhouse layouts. Several flats in a single building mean you can install an elevator, which provides great access for all, including the disabled. Builders can install additional sound proofing between levels to anticipate buyers’ concerns about noises from their upstairs neighbors.
To reiterate: we entered the meeting last Saturday thinking that yes, of course the patient can and should be saved! But after consideration, I have to say we think the patient should be left to die. It is not a good building type for increasing density in Seattle, or for any place. Instead, to increase affordability and density, Seattle should do more to encourage the condominium form of ownership and the construction of multi-storied flats on larger lots.
I came across a mention of the Swedish Club's pancake breakfast in the Seattle Weekly yesterday, so Anya and I though we'd give it a try. Tourists in our own city. The Swedish Club puts on the breakfast once a month, on the first Sunday of each month... (Hm, one thing the Seattle Weekly really got wrong. In the article, they had June 7th as being the day for the breakfast... how could that ever be true? Hmmm...)
Anyways, the breakfast was a good time. The pancakes are solid. You get two tickets for the $7 per person. One for the first pass, a couple of crepe style pancakes with lingonberries, whipped cream and a slab of ham. The second ticket for another plate of pancakes minus ham. Drip coffee and orange juice are thrown in along with occasional live music and dancing. You'll leave full. Anya didn't go back for seconds. I did and felt just full enough, probably due to the healthy dollop of whipped cream.
If you go, the place will be packed. We had to wait a short bit for a table, joining a family already there. Its a good place to just randomly see people that you wouldn't otherwise. And yes, the nordic presence is strong. I give it a thumbs-up for an old-school community breakfast.
On a whim after a movie in downtown we headed over to try out Le Creperie Voila. Could this place be any good when compared to Paris and Vancouver B.C.? I give it a yes. Under the glass covered sidewalks of the Convention Center, Le Creperie Voila is a small kiosk outside of the Convention Center, across the street from the Cheesecake Factory. Seating is limited to a few tables anchored to the sidewalk, on the edge of Pike Street. Not the most picturesque place in the world to eat, but not that bad. The crepes? Good enough for me. We split a Bananas Foster with ice cream, mmmmmmmm good. A lot of people we saw were taking savory crepes to go. Not really the Parisian tea and crepe experience, but for Seattle, a good place for a solid crepe.
Ah, the weekend. After being sick for 3 weeks in a row, I'm using this week to really rest and relax. Good thing, because the weather was great. So we bummed around town. Had a nice lunch over at the Ballard Locks and walked the Ballard neighborhood. We strolled over to the Arboretum to see the Rhododendrons before they totally were spent. Since we were close we stopped by the Japanese Garden to see the monster carp and the blooming Wisteria. Monday morning we visited Fort Lawton's Cememtery to see the gravestones on Memorial Day, and then to downtown for some more strolling, Indiana Jones and food.
See we've essentially been back now longer than we were on a trip. It just doesn't feel like it. Hopefully we'll be going back and making notations of our trip memories soon, before they become forgotten memories. I've been able to geotag the first day of pictures. Its rather labor intensive, but fun. Kinda. It is rather amazing what you can remember by reviewing your steps with Google Earth.
And just so that its officially on the blog - the forgotten last day, day 10. A day I didn't have high expectations of, being a travel day essentially, but Nijo Castle during the daytime was very cool. I couldn't take pictures of the inside, but it had some of the most interesting and well preserved interiors of any ancient building we saw.
And let me tell you, Osaka's International Airport (KIX), is a MONSTER! The trip out to the airport was in the rain, but when you are taking a bridge out to an artificial island, and the land disappears from sight... well, that's a big island.
