I seem to have fallen somewhat out of the habit of posting. There's plenty going on in my life, but nothing that seems to gel into a really coherent journal entry. So I'll just natter on for a bit...

I've had a nice, lazy, three day weekend. On Saturday, Daniel and I went to Best Buy, and I finally broke down and bought a Dance Dance Revolution mat, and a copy of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. I've been wanting to get one ever since I went to a panel/demonstration on the game at Worldcon. I figured, hey, anything that can harness the Skinner-box addictiveness of video games to a good aerobic workout is something that I need to try out.

So far, so good. I still trip over my own feet if I try to play the game in anything other than beginner mode, but I've gotten noticeably better in just the three or four sessions that I've played. It's a great way to work up a sweat. I think it'll make a nice supplement to my usual workout routine.

Daniel likes the game, too. We may need to get a second mat so that we can play doubles. Though, he's already better than me, dammit.

On Sunday, I braved the Great Mall of Milpitas during Labor Day weekend to try to buy a new pair of jeans, because I've lost enough weight that my former favorite pair now has to be worn securely belted in order to avoid wardrobe incidents. No luck, though. I found one pair that sorta fit, but it had flared legs. Flares just don't work on me. I think I'm gonna order from Lands End again.

I did pick up a couple of cheap T-shirts, and a nice red top that I can wear with my endless collection of black skirts, so the trip wasn't a total waste.

I also tried out a bunch of new recipes - I've set a goal of trying one new recipe a week, so that I can broaden my repertoire (and justify my tendency to stockpile cooking magazines), but I tried out three this weekend. The best of the bunch were these Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps from Epicurious. Really easy, really tasty, reasonably healthy. Also really really messy. (I think I'm going to try for a thicker-leafed lettuce next time. I used butter lettuce, as called for in the recipe, and the leaves had a tendency to fall apart.)

The butter lettuce was actually kind of funny - it was sold in a plastic container, with its roots still on, with, "It stays fresh because it's still alive!!!" written on the package. Makes you wonder, what's the most humane way to kill a butter lettuce?

Also tried out a not-very-authentic recipe for jambalaya from this month's issue of Cuisine at Home. It was also really easy, though not for folks who don't like chopping veggies. I threw caution to the wind and used the maximum amount of Tabasco sauce suggested by the recipe, and it came out nicely spicy, but not too hot. Cuisine at Home seems to have a very generous idea of portion sizes, though. They claimed that the recipes served 4, but based on how much Daniel and I ate and how many servings I squirreled away in tupperware for lunches this week, I'd say it serves 6 to 8.

Tonight I tried a recipe from the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook for "Grilled Tuna Steaks with Sephardic Chile Relish". Tuna steaks were on sale at Safeway. I broiled them instead of grilling them, since we don't have a grill. The Sephardic chile relish was great stuff - it's a mixture of chopped garlic, fresh jalapeno, cilantro, tomato, cumin and lemon juice. (I might call that a salsa, but if they want to call it a Sephardic chile relish, I won't mince words. Just garlic.)

The tuna steaks themselves were a little disappointing. They weren't bad, and I've certainly had worse tuna steaks (and generally paid restaurant prices for them.) But they also weren't quite as flavorful as I'd hoped. I don't know whether the issue was the seasoning (the only seasoning applied to the tuna before broiling was a tablespoon of the relish mixture plus some olive oil). Or if perhaps I overcooked the tuna (It was still pink in the middle, but definitely cooked - medium rather than medium rare. This was intentional on my part, since the tuna was not advertised as being "sashimi grade", but it may be that my palate is now so accustomed to rare/raw tuna that the cooked stuff doesn't taste right. That would be kind of silly.) Or perhaps the quality of the tuna was not that great, or I got the wrong variety. (The tuna was labelled as ahi/yellowtail, which confused me, as I think of those as being different things, but a quick check of wikipedia shows that multiple species of tuna, one of which is yellowtail, are sometimes sold as ahi. Hmmm.)

Well, perhaps the next time I feel like splurging, I'll see if I can procure some sashimi grade tuna (from 99 Ranch, maybe?), and cook it rare.

I've been thinking of starting a food/cooking blog. Of course, I always tend to think about starting a blog on my interest of the moment. But I've been thinking that a Movable Type blog might be a good quick and dirty way to create an online searchable database of my favorite recipes, which are currently scattered among various books, magazines, and websites. And an online database of recipes would come in very handy.

Things I didn't do this weekend: Laundry. Calling or e-mailing any of the gazillion people to whom I owe calls or e-mails. Cleaning up my desk. Unpacking books.

Well, tomorrow is another day.