Quick post from sleepy me

It is once again way too late at night. I'm sitting in my room. My boyfriend likes the floor, so I'm starting to appreciate it. I'm sitting on the floor right now, with my back against my bed.

He made fried rice today, I made custard. Both turned out amazing, with each flavor clearly standing out against the background of the others. His fried rice contained specially-made burnt-rice bits that he claimed tasted like peanuts. To me, they taste like a whole bunch of indescribable flavors, that dance around on your tongue and make you feel satisfied. But they hide among the other rice, so you can't just fish them all out and put them all on your plate . . .

My custard had caramel and espresso in it. He went to the math department specially with a bay leaf jar to fetch the espresso while I played at making dry caramel. Dry caramel behaves differently from wet caramel. I.e. when you add cold cream to it, instead of almost boiling over in your 10-quart pot, it hardens and waits to be coaxed into your cream with warmth and stirring. On my first attempt adding cream, I thought I had ruined everything by not making the caramel boil enough. So I poured the cream back into its measuring cup, and put the caramel back onto the stove. The next time I poured cream in, the caramel formed some very interesting abstract art at the bottom of the pot, and would not separate so easily from the cream.

The end result was incredibly intense caramel-coffee custard in a little pot. And let's face it, the custards have all your necessary food groups: they have your fats, your sugars . . . what more could you want?

Cooking has become my main adventure since coming here. The cupboard has green cardamom in it. When you crack open a pod with the flat of a knife (not necessarily a silver one, but the result is still magic) you see little black seeds. Crush them, and you get a spice with a delicate smell. In dessert, it's heaven.

I've learned how to steam Chinese buns in a bamboo steamer. I've learned that making your own sushi is more delicious and cheaper than going out. I've found Indian grocery stores, and Japanese grocery stores, and Chinese grocery stores, and even a small Russian grocery, although the candy there was from New York. Oh, and Mexican grocery stores with fresh bread that costs 25 cents. In short, I'm traveling the world in my kitchen. It's an engrossing hobby.

I suppose there are other things to talk about. I need to talk about going for a walk the other day, and following intense music to an outdoor party with almost-naked, body-painted women dancing with hula-hoops (who'd have thought . . . ) Or the time I was sitting in the book store and the men's swim team stormed in wearing nothing but their speedos. They had nice abs, and as my boyfriend says, are kind of fish-shaped. But I guess I should save that for a naked people post. Then I could mention the time this past summer when I was walking in San Francisco with a friend, and we walked past a contingent of entirely nude, middle-aged cyclists. Then again, maybe I'd best consign that to this naked people footnote. (Only in California . . . )