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Fall foraging

There are some good foraging opportunities near my apartment. The best is a pear tree – I believe it is ornamental since the pears are small. It wasn’t clear to me if the owners were interested in the pears, so I just collected ones that had fallen onto the sidewalk, and made pear-sauce! I strained the cooked pears through a mesh strainer, and used the remaining fibrous matter to make alcohol.

There are also a ton of sugar maples. If I had tapping equipment, I could make maple syrup.

And lastly, there are a ton of chestnut trees. Unfortunately, they are horse chestnuts, not true or sweet chestnuts, which were largely killed off in the early 1900s by chestnut blight. The only trees that survived were those far enough (about 10 km) away from other chestnut trees.

Horse chestnuts contain high levels of naturally-occurring saponins, which make them taste really bitter. Apparently, they are also poisonous. Before realizing this, I collected a bunch. I was super excited to find chestnuts since they’re pretty expensive to buy.

Horse chestnuts really look quite similar to true chestnuts. The main difference, besides taste, is the lack of a tassel on the tip of the shell. True chestnut husks also have more closely-set spines.

As far as I’m aware, horse chestnuts only have one use: making liquid soap! You can soak the nutmeats in water to dissolve the saponins, and use the soaking liquid as liquid soap or detergent.

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Advancements in hair-cutting

I’ve been cutting my hair for a while now, since it’s so hard to get a good and not-expensive professional haircut. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to do with just scissors and no helpers! I’ve tried to train J to cut my hair, but he has no experience and isn’t confident enough to learn. I would be willing to have a few months of bad haircuts in return for years of free grooming services (:

Soooooo, I decided to invest in an electric hair trimmer, the type with guards. Only $25 used on eBay, about the same cost as a single mid-tier professional haircut!

Unfortunately, in the first attempt, I received an alarm clock.

At least it’s a fancy alarm clock?

It took some finagling, but I eventually got the hair trimmer, and the alarm clock buyer got the alarm clock. (The boxes were almost exactly the same size and shape; I can see how they got mixed up.)

The trimmer works well! I’m not sure if my haircut is good, but at least it’s even.

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Marufuku Ramen

I’ve been wanting to go to Marufuku Ramen in SF, for a while now, but since they don’t have any vegetarian options it’s hard to go there when I’m travelling with N.

Fortunately, Friend M came to visit the Bay Area, so we decided to go try it.

They always have a really long line. Fortunately, you can put your name on a waitlist on Yelp. I’d recommend doing this 1-2 hours in advance.
Friend M pictured with his Off-White branded camera strap.
Chicken karaage. Pretty good.
Hakata Deluxe Ramen. Tonkotsu broth with chashu and kakuni.
I saw people doing this (lifting noodles out of bowl) on Instagram, so I decided to try it too.

Overall, pretty good. Would recommend.

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Sichuan Hotpot

I went bouldering yesterday with Friend A. After we finished, we happened across Friend B at the gym, and the three of us planned to have dinner together.

Unfortunately, Friend A has decided as of late that his diet must consist solely of Panang Curry Chicken from Siam Royal. After much protest from Friend B and I, we managed to grudgingly convince Friend A to have homemade hot pot instead.

I haven’t been using my Sichuan seasonings at a fast enough rate, so I decided to make Sichuan-style hot pot. Here’s the recipe.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a table-top burner, so we had to make due with eating around the stove in the kitchen.
My kitchen isn’t so clean. Maybe a B health rating.
Friend A and B, shown here eating hotpot while critiquing r/MachineLearning (apparently it’s trash or something).

Overall, it was pretty good. And much cheaper than the Sichuan hotpot at Haidilao.

After hotpot, we watched the heartwarming new show Goblin Slayer. Interestingly, it seems like it’s a show about slaying goblins.

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Infestation?!!

Back when sibling C was visiting J and me in the Bay Area, C started off one day with CPR training (and took the light rail there!), and we were supposed to work on food or crafts afterwards, but… all other plans were overshadowed by fear of bed bugs!

Right before visiting J and me, C stayed at a hostel in Boston, where she got some bug bites. The bites weren’t particularly bad, and it isn’t that common for pests to be carried on people or luggage, so we weren’t worried (at first!).

Unfortunately, a couple days after arriving at our place, C got another bug bite! (While our first worry is always bed bugs, fleas and spiders are also possibilities. In any case, bed bugs are particularly safe – they don’t carry human diseases.) So we went on an emergency search for boric acid (couldn’t find it) or diatomaceous earth, which we proceeded to liberally sprinkle around the apartment.

It also became a major laundry and cleaning day. C and I ran her sheets and the mattress cover for her mattress through the dryer (high heat kills bed bugs), and we froze all the pillows for a few days. All of our efforts seem to have worked, ’cause no one got bites after that. I hear you have to go a year without any bites to be completely sure the pests are gone… Wish us luck…

And C is now using the rest of the diatomaceous earth for gardening!

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Unsubscribe from Xfinity marketing emails?

I have Xfinity (Comcast) internet and, unfortunately, part of signing up is getting sales emails that are impossible to unsubscribe from. The emails include an “unsubscribe” link, but it sends you to a webpage with an “unsubscribe” button that doesn’t actually do anything. Maybe if you click the button a bunch you’ll forget that you’re getting unwanted spam…

I contacted Customer Service to try to get unsubscribed (and told multiple representatives that the Xfinity unsubscribe tool doesn’t work) – we’ll see how that turns out. I figure I can just keep bothering them until they finally get it fixed.

Let me know if you’ve managed to fix this particular problem! I’d be glad for tips!

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Usaato exhibition

Usaato is having an exhibition at the San Francisco Japan Town mall. It is going to be from 11am to 6pm on Saturday-Sunday October 6-7.

Natural fiber, plant dyed, and hand-woven clothing from the Usaburo Sato collection will be displayed and sold. Usaato clothing is made from cotton, hemp, and silk fabrics woven and sewn in farming villages in Laos and Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is Usaato’s mission to support sustainable agriculture, respect village traditions, and bring a healthy economy and quality life to these villages.

 

Have fun!

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Goats on campus?

This morning, I saw a (small) herd of goats on campus. I was quite taken aback for a moment, then figured they must be there for landscaping purposes. I don’t know what exactly they were eating – this particular hill is mostly covered with vines and invasive-looking trees (which the goats were chewing the bark off of…).

It turns out there was a news feature on the goats!

CMU Goes Eco-Friendly, Brings In Goats To Landscape Overgrown Hillside

Apparently this particular hill is too steep and weedy for easy landscaping, hence the goats. I hope they get used for milk or meat!