Motorcycle Anoop
My Husqvarna Svartpilen 401 arrived today! "Arrived" because I had to have it delivered from MotorCafe in Campbell because 1) I'm not allowed to ride on the freeway under my learner's permit and 2) I don't think I remember how to ride without stalling every time i try to switch gears.
Now to prove "Jean Paul Champion" of the Motorcyle Safety Course that he was wrong to fail me. (Though he was totally right to fail me... I need some work before I can be called proficient.)
First Solo Baby!
Due to weather issues I had to wait many many weeks between my solo phase check and my first solo, but it finally happened and it was GRRRRRRRRRREAT!
I flew 5043J because my chosen "soul mate" airplane 186CS was in the shop.
This was the usual first solo activity -- a warm up with your instructor, then you drop him off and do three laps around the pattern on your own. I landed without trouble on my first and second laps, then ended up doing a go-around once on my third lap. I admit to freaking out a bit after the go-around (even though it's totally normal) as I found myself thinking that I may not be able to bring it down, but I managed to bring it down just fine on the fourth lap.
My instructor took videos of all my landings. They were all like the below -- early roundouts and floating forever. Some of that was due to my not being prepared for the lower weight (one less person in the cockpit) but I do actually have an issue with early roundouts.
Now I can freely rent a plane and fly around the bay as long as remain within 25nm of my home airport, Palo Alto. I'm allowed to land in Palo Alto, San Carlos, Hayward and Livermore, each with their own unique characteristics (though Hayward is going to be my go-to airport since runway 28L is large enough for me to perform touch-and-goes under my club's 4000ft runway length requirement).
I foresee some hefty airplane rental fees in my near future.
Solo Phase Check Complete!
It took me three weeks to finish my solo phase check due to uncooperative weather. And now that I've completed it I've been waiting another two weeks to actually do my first supervised solo (three laps around the airport to a full stop landing) but some combination of weather and smoke from fires up north have kept the right seat occupied. Maaaaaaaaybe this week I'll get a break...
(Incidentally, my phase check was in 605WM, not in the Pilatus.)
Shrimp Tacos
These really took less than 25 minutes. Well almost... my mayonnaise had separated in the fridge from god knows when I had made it so I had to make a new batch but I spent a substantial amount of time failing at fixing the broken batch. Aside from that... 25 minutes, no problem!
Keep a bag of shrimp in your freezer and pick up an avocado on the way home and impress your friends with some of the finest tacos they've ever had made surprisingly fast! You can even make the slaw in advance... I'm sure it will last forever in the fridge and will make for a delicious and healthy snack for when you have some salty soury cravings.
TV Dinner Day: Salisbury Steak with Brownie
A most excellent Salisbury Steak recreation from Chef John with the probably the best mushroom gravy I've ever had.
Served with mashed potatoes and green beans, with ramiken brownies for desert. My nephew had been expecting an actual steak steak instead of a fried meatloaf, but he scarfed it down.
Humble addition: I added a bit of Better than Bouillon Roasted Beef Base for an extra beefy boost. I almost always use this little hack to add extra chickeniness or beefiness to stuff.
All of this is way fancier than it should be if I were trying to make an actual retro TV dinner, but looking at the classic pics, it's probably for the better.
I actually thought I used to eat a thing called a "TV Dinner" but the actual original "TV Brand Frozen Dinner" from Swanson predated me by probably 30 years, so I must have just been eating generic frozen dinners.
Original Recipes:
Chicken and Yellow Rice and White Sauce
Widely recognized as NYC's number one best street food. I made Ethan Cheblowski's take on it.
My humble addition was to debone and deskin the chicken thighs myself and then pressure cook the bones and skin hard to make the stock for the rice, and then coat the skin and bone remnants in chicken bullion powder and crisp them up under the broiler. If you can resist snacking on it, these little "chicken bacon bits" make an excellent addition to the rice.
Pilot Log Book Plug Holder
Part of me hopes it catches fire so I have to start over again and I can hide how long it's taken me to solo (phase check in 2 weeks baby woo!)
This is at Caffe Bene, where I go to read books and ogle all the cute Indian gals (name your race and I will tell you which coffee shop to go to for peak ogling opportunity -- not creepy, not creepy at all!).
Deez Nuts
I probably wouldn't know who Mr. Beast is were it not for my 11yo nephew. But Mr. Beast is big! So big that he's apparently trying to fight the good fight against Hershey and Mars in the intense battle for grocery store candybar shelf space.
Google must have been listening in when my nephew asked me to get some Mr. Beast candybars, as this appeared in my YouTube feed.
It's also possible that Breaking Points coincidentally covered this topic on the same day and it appeared in my feed because I'm a subscriber. Or maybe this is some fabric of the universe thing.
Anyhow... Deez Nuts were pretty good, sorta like a Reese's Pieces candy bar. And milk from grass fed cows... I approve!
Hainanese Chicken Rice
One of the best ways to show people that you mean it when you say you don't waste anything from a whole chicken.
That's the breast part of a whole poached chicken, Triple Chicken rice (triple because I because I fried up the rice before cooking in rendered chicken fat, cooked the rice in the chicken poaching liquid, and topped with some crispy skin and meat pieces that I pulled off the chicken after poaching and put until the broiler for a bit), and some of the poaching liquid as a basic chicken soup.
If it was more than just me and my nephew I'd have chopped up the drumsticks and thighs (instead of using them for leftovers) and also used the gizzards for some skewers.
