Continuing my Chetna love, I decided to make another one of her youtube dishes with (e:terry). This one is Dal Tadka, or just yellow lentil.



This recipie was also pretty easy but we had to make a few substiutions. Price Rite didn't have yellow lentil nor green chili pepper, so I used red lentil and a green pepper. No cilantro either for (e:paul).

The lentils were cooked with a teaspoon of tumeric and salt, almost into a soup. They became very foamy, I'm not sure if I did something wrong. Consistency was very good though.


The topping is cumin seeds, with chili powder, onion, pepper, garlic and tomato simmered together in a buttered pan. (She used ghee but I thought it'd be easier to use butter)


I wasn't as crazy about this one as the chana masala but it may have been the tumeric is overpowering. I thought it could use a hotter pepper and cilantro for sure, and more topping compared to the amount of lentils.

The rest of the night was spent reading more about domain driven design and event sourcing PHP frameworks. I really want to write about these because I really don't understand them.

At (e:uchina)'s house we watched a ton of baking shows. One was Cupcake Wars. The other was the Great British Bake off. The latter was much classier.

The bake off has 12 contestants competing in a weekly elimination in three different baking contests. Inexplicably, they're also cooking in outdoor kitchens on the lawn of a giant British estate. The judges aren't mean, they hug the losers and the host Mary Berry says things like "Your sponge is perfectly moist! Bang on, pussy!"



You quickly come to love/hate most of the bakers real quick. Norm is the boring grandpa you love. Ian is the beardy one. Diana is the cheating grandma, and Chetna is just my absolute traumfrau. She is from India and always has the best sounding dishes (onion and pine nut rolls). She's also the most beautiful contestant, so I'm obsessed.

She has a website where she teaches you how to make all sorts of cakes and desserts but also Indian food.




Terry and I made her chana masala. Suprisingly it wasn't as hard I thought it was going to be. I always was afraid of cooking Indian spices but we followed the video and it turned out amazing.



Browning the onion with coriander, cumin seeds, salt, garam masala, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves.

(e:terry) chopping up garlic and tomatoes

Cook until brown


Simmer chickpeas in the mix until soft.

Amazing. I was so sad we ate it all

We did a little less lounging on Sunday and explored (e:uchina)'s neighborhood (I think it's called Highland Park). She has hills near her and I was so happy to climb them.

The temperature was warm. I wish I had brought shorts.

We stopped at a urban yuppie mall for egg sandwiches. There were a lot of soccer moms.

We took a few dog quizzes while walking around. It turns out (e:uchina) is a terrier/dachshund depending on who you ask.

Up at the top of another hill is the Rochester reservoir called Hemlock lake. Water from Hemlock lake flows down to this hill in a creek and is pumped up here. They have a fancy marble pump house and a nice path around the whole lake.


Everyone was on the track when we were walking. A man flying a drone way better than we ever could, a kid possibly spreading ashes on the hill (?! thankfully not in the water, gross), all the dogs you would ever want to spot



The hill has a good view. I wish Buffalo had a steep elevation change somewhere



360 foto for your VR viewing. I really want to get a 360 javascript viewer on (e:strip).


While we were walking around we noticed all these slides on the ground. At first I thought they were going to be someone's photos but it turned out they were old slides with photos of bacteria and a bunch of presentation text. The best was when (e:paul) found one with e. coli stuck in a pile of dog poop D: ::blech::.
Why did they end up next to a public trash can?







A radio transmission tower at the top of the hill

A secret swing. There was also secret mountain bike trails/ski paths

Saturday was a lot of crafts and lounging at (e:uchina)'s.

We went out to brunch and (e:terry) had a giant fried french toast. I had a tofu scramble.

While we were there I tried my hand at crocheting. I am not very good at keeping my hooked holes tight.


Later back at the apartment, we drew a little bit. Masumi made valentine's, Paul made his trippy animals, and I drew an otter. Sometimes I wish I could draw better, but it's low on my list of things to practice. I try to follow those "sketch a circle, and another circle etc" tutorials - is that how people actually draw animals?




This lovely work of art was made by (e:uchina) at a Japanese restaurant near her house. Beautiful! I feel like I'm being swept away at some fancy ball(s).

Friday night we headed up to Rochester to go to our friend Tom's dj thing at this bar called Skylark lounge. We met up with Liz and (e:uchina) at her apartment.

The music was pretty good for house music but I think the best part about the bar was meeting and talking to all the Rochester gays. I think most of the bar was gay.




They also had a "Lord of the Rings" pinball machine. Here's Masumi and (e:terry) getting balls right in the flaming eye hole.




The night wrapped up at Tom and Derrick's awesome house a short walk away from (e:uchina)'s aparment. We frolicked around until 6 am with all sorts of drunken craziness.