I need another weekend to recover from my weekends. Dinner and a bar on Friday; Thai food lunch, home made dumplings and homemade chocolate mousse on Saturday; followed by skiing, NFC/AFC Championship games, and a family dinner on Sunday. I’m almost glad to be at work so that I can use this time to recover before starting this all up again come the next weekend.
So Friday night was dinner at Angelini Osteria with a pack of friends; then afterward we were off to Busby’s for drinks. Why Angelini? Well, a few nights before, Helen and I were flipping through the cable channels and stopped, as usual, on the damn food tv channel. It’s a wonder I’m such a fat SOB. The show on is “the best thing I’ve ever had” caveat cheese. Giada de Laurentiis, damn cute and nice rack; talks about a lasagna dish from Angelini. Helen says she wants to go, I playfully respond with Friday, and she’s serious. So I hand my phone over and she makes a reservation. The lasagna is amazing, but it’s an appetizer sized dish. The various things we ordered were amazing, and I think we’ll definitely be returning to the place.
Drinks at Busby’s wasn’t anything special. It had been a while since I did the bar scene. I just felt old, but I enjoyed myself. I did like kicking the crap out of Jen and Art at eight ball when we finally got our hands on one of the pool tables. Drunk Helen + drunk Weiju in the back seat of my car isn’t what I’d call the highlight of the night. One has a voice that just pierces your soul in the worst way possible with the most amount of pain and discomfort – like no lube or spit on the tip; while the other is just loud and overly violent. And the night doesn’t end yet, I don’t get to bed until about 5am Saturday morning.
Well, it’s Saturday and at the very least, I get to sleep in right? I cannot remember the last time I got to sleep in on a weekend day. A phone call in the morning to tell me that Monday’s trip was canceled was a nice touch. Followed by one from my mom to grab me for dinner Sunday evening. All before 10am. Hooray for me. Nicky and Angel come over and along with Helen and Art, we head out for some Thai food. Art’s still hung over from the previous night and regaling us with tales of some gigantic Mongolian girl. Art is oblivious to Chinese history and the reasons we built that one wall that can be seen from f-ing space. Not sure if nomads are > than punji stick laying tunnel diggers; but guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
While at lunch, I come up with a way to trap Nicky and Angel with me for the evening. Dumpling night! We head over to the local 99 ranch market and grab the necessary ingredients. Then over to Angel’s place to pick up some extra cleavers. It’s always fun to watch people stare strangely at us while we walk towards the car wielding knives; yeah, sure, we could have used a paper bag and look a little less conspicuous, but what fun would that be? We get back to my place and start up on the filling for the dumplings.
Slabs of pork are cut into chunks then pulverized with our cleavers. Good thing Angel and I have amazing wrist strength…
The meat is seasoned and mixed together by hand. Sad that this is the most action my right had has gotten in a while.
Garlic, green onions, leeks, and napa cabbage are similarly pulverized and mixed in with the meat.
Then the rest of the folks lounging around the house are called in to wrap dumplings. Now, if we were truly hardcore, we would have made our own dough, but alas, that will have to wait for another day when we have more time to waste.
While wrapping dumplings, Art earns a new nickname: Dumpling Nazi. Odd to hear him screaming instructions on how to properly fill, fold, and crimp dumplings at folks whom have never before done this; and with a German accent. But the Dumpling Nazi is aptly named, as his are indeed the prettiest of all the dumplings. I think everyone is with me when we’re surprised at the attention to detail, well with the exception of Helen I guess.
Regardless of how pretty or ugly they were, they tasted damn good fried and boiled.
For the full methodology for how we made the dumplings and what ingredients we used, click here.
Before dinner, we had gotten through three packs of dumpling wrappers when we ran out. We had made about 110 dumplings. We sent Helen and Kenny out to get more wrappers but they were not able to find any at the local Ralphs; had they looked harder we’d not have the next part of this story; which takes up shortly after we finish dinner. Since we still have more of the filling left over, we needed more wrappers, so Angel and I headed out. Now, a little preface. Earlier in the week, Su had asked me along with a number of her other friends to go to the Improv. Throughout the week, they had all picked up their tickets for the show. I’d been dragging my feet; reason being, is that I don’t really care much for Jon Lovitz. And it’s the underlying reason I sabotaged my own ability to go with dumpling night and all that. Well, the show is scheduled for 9pm, and Su wanted to get really good seats so they left my place at 7 for the Brea Improv so as to stand in line. I’m still under the impression that Jon Lovitz sucks ass and that there was no way people would be lined up to see the smuck. So on our way to get more dumpling wrappers, I decide to take a detour and check out line. We drove by around 8, there are some people there, but not really a line, but we don’t see Su nor her friends, so we continue on to the nearest market. We goa few blocks north and find a Vons. There, we find square wrappers instead of circular ones that we were using earlier, we acquiesce and grab these.
Heading back down towards the Improv, I get a phone call from Su’s phone with Kenny talking to me asking if I’m coming. Coincidence has it that I’m right across the street from the Improv, so I head to the parking structure and park. I still have no intention of going to see Lovitz, and with Angel with me, that should have been more apparent. We find the group in line and they’re not even the first ones in line; but they are close to the front. I’m actually quite surprised that people are such fans. There is a fairly long line now that formed between the time Angel and I drove by and when we returned. We go over and chat a little, and I she asks if I had gotten my ticket, and if Angel was coming along. With a negative response to both questions, Su becomes visibly upset at the news. In hindsight, I guess I should have made my dislike of Lovitz known earlier. Oh well, this all makes for a fun story regardless. Getting the complete cold shoulder, refusal to even look at me, Angel and I return home. I’m a horrible person as this only serves to make me giggle like an idiot.
With dumpling wrappers in hand, we gather the folks and return to the table to finish making the dumplings. Square wrappers throw a wrench into everything, and we’re finding creative ways to make the damn things now. Finishing up, we all return to the living room to hang out. While on her netbook, Nicky writes on Terry’s wall complaining that she hasn’t seen him nor Duke in a while. He’s online so he responds, and they chat using the facebook api. This prompts Angel and I to then use the other computers in the house and bombard the poor bastard with FB chat messages. I guilt Terry into coming over. Jay had called earlier to ask what we were up to, and I told him to just stop by to hang out. Nicky’s love of hanging out at my place was starting to wane and with the prospect of Terry and Duke coming over, her interest in staying longer is renewed. We head out to the market to get some snacks, as that usually seals her fate in hanging out for the rest of the night. We had delusions of watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for which neither Angel nor Terry has seen. Yeah, that worked out as planned.
We head back out to the local Ralphs for snacks, some provisions for the next day, and ingredients for chocolate mousse as I figured I owed Nicky for gracing us with her presence and allowing Angel to hang out longer. While wandering the market to grab our various item, my curiosity piqued and I went to look for dumpling wrappers. I found them, and they had both square and round ones. *sigh* The lesson of the day is that if you truly want something done right, DO IT YOUR DAMN SELF!
Getting home, the process for making chocolate mousse begins. While we’re making the mousse, Jay shows up and has Pamela in tow. She’s from Seattle, but is in town to help out her sister in Santa Barbabra. Terry shows up at about the same time with Duke. The mousse is finished and left in the fridge to set up, and rock band is started up. So much for Raiders. Hugo is laying on top of Nicky as she proceeds to pass out. Kenny shows up after the Lovits show but everyone was getting ready to crash. Before leaving, the chocolate mousse is grabbed from the fridge and everyone has some. I think Angel and I were successful with the mousse. The visitors with the exception of Kenny all go home. Art and I were going skiing the next day, so he went off and crashed. I showered and went to bed, leaving Kenny with Helen. I crashed around 2 am.
3 and a half hours later, my alarm goes off; time to wake up and head to the mountains. We pile into Art’s car and head out around 6 in the morning. Damn clear day, but it’s still dark so only the silhouette of the mountains can be seen. As it gets lighter, the brilliance in the amount of snow that covered the local mountains shines through. This is going to be a fantastic day.
Traffic is clear all the way up until we reach the 138 and then highway 2. Everyone is taking advantage of the clear day and recent storms’ snow dumps. But we get to Mt High at 8, and Art and I are on the lifts by 8:15 or so. We run non-stop. Between the black and blues. I have never seen so much snow at this place. It reminded me of your typical day at Tahoe.
Holy hell am I out of shape. My quads started to twitch and burn after the first run down a black. But we ran non stop from when we got there until about 12:30pm. On one of the lift runs, I remember that Brandon usually likes going to Mt High, and that I should have called him up as he would have probably done well with running with us. I found out later that Brandon was there too. I should have figured that he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to get some boarding with the most recent storms passed. The snow is amazing. Art’s practicing going goofy and I’m enjoying the small bowls and trees. My quads were really starting to bother me. Granted, I could have just stuck to the groomed, but with so much snow, it’s a rare chance to hit ungrommed areas at So. Cal resorts. And to just reiterate the amount of snow that has hit the local mountains, trees at the end of the day were still covered with snow and ice.
After a short rest, I was able to do one more run and had to call it. Legs were starting to give out. The last time I refused to listen to my legs, I crashed hard on a green run while a little 8 year old girl screamed passed me pointing and laughing her ass off at me. Know your limits. I headed down and told Art I was done and geared down at the car. He did one more run and we were ready to return home. I guess the saving grace was that we’d get to listen to half of the Jets/Colts game on our way back, and get to watch the Saints/Vikings game at home. Heading out, the roads were packed. Cars were lined up all along both sides of the roads. Apparently there were too many cars at the resorts so CHP was there to control the number of cars allowed into the area, which just caused a line of cars all the way down to just about the 15. While driving down, both sides of the roads were packed with people out enjoying the snow. Folks with sleds, tubes, grills, and chairs. It took us at least an hour to get to the 15, and then another hour to get home. I laughed as we left as I thought about the poor bastards that would be leaving later when the sun went down. I guess it’s a good thing I’m in horrific shape that caused use to leave early.
More pictures of the day on and off the slopes are here: http://gamerabaenre.com/ski_mt_high.htm
I’m sore as all hell; I need another weekend to recover dammit….
