A belly full of uni

I am a lucky girl: Two wonderful dinners in one weekend. Yesterday, it was an Italian restaurant in Brentwood called Osteria Latini. Great thanks to Erin's boyfriend, Naveen, for treating us to the meal and choosing a delicious wine - a 2001 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon. My entree was linguine prepared with "tuna eggs," garlic, and olive oil.

I'd never had tuna eggs before (though I would advise the chef to call it "roe" on the menu instead). But I think I have the dish figured out. The linguine was a rich, yellow homemade pasta cooked al dente and tossed with the olive oil, garlic, and what appeared to be shavings of tuna roe. I think the roe was cooked and smoked so that it was hard, and then grated to make flavorful shavings for this distinctive pasta.

[Aha! My friend Google has just solved the mystery. And reminded me of the name of my dish: Linguine alla Bottarga. Bottarga = dried and salted roe.]

The second wonderful meal was tonight with Jason and Jen at Kanpachi, a sushi bar tucked in a strip mall in Gardena. The chef has known Jen's family for years, and treated us like guests in his own home. Leaving the meal to his good judgment, we sat at the bar with happy hearts as he feasted us with a long succession of nigiri sushi. With his own hands, he placed them in couplets on a big ti leaf we each had in front of us.

My only regret was eating a bit too quickly, before I learned that the pairings were done with a purpose. The best sushi I had was of saba, a mackerel that had been salted and vinegared then molded into a small square with rice. I also had a very fresh and melty uni * (sea urchin), the memory of which stayed on my tongue the whole drive home. And a very rich toro (fatty tuna) and soft chunks of purple octopus served with a flavored dipping salt. Another interesting dish, served just in the autumn season, was a delicate mushroom broth in a tiny clay teapot. We squeezed a small lime-like fruit into the broth, then drank little cupfuls until it was gone.

As for the title of this entry, it's because the chef at Osteria Latini sent to our table a free appetizer of uni-and-sea-scallop carpaccio. We had gotten the shaft in terms of seating, so this was his way of apologizing. Like the soft uni on our tongue, the resentment melted away.

* For those who haven't experienced uni, it's a soft, yellowish mass that has both a faint sweetness and the salty taste of the sea. I enjoy it for the same reason that I am in love with fresh raw oysters. Both are so simple and natural that they turn out to be, kind of paradoxically, more of a luxury than the most elaborate soufflé.

Should laws be respected?

I'm not going to go in order in answering these 7 questions for people who are new to the discipline of philosophy, because that would just be too structured even for me.

The first one that I've felt like tackling is: Should laws be respected? For whatever reason, this question popped into my mind as I was lying in bed last night waiting to fall asleep. My answer is yes. But not because it's the right thing to do or because society demands it, although those are pretty persuasive reasons too.

Laws are the only way we can achieve the peace and quiet we need to pursue the things that make us happy, like - depending on the person - power or material things or self-improvement or a loving relationship. If there were no laws, we'd just be fighting all the time (as is the case, unfortunately, in parts of the world). Imagine living in a state of chaos and attempting to do "normal" things like get an education, take your kid to the zoo for the first time, stroll down the street looking for a restaurant with just the right menu to tempt you inside.

Without a set of rules that we collectively agree to follow, we'd be crashing into each other's cars at intersections, getting our purses snatched or snatching other people's purses, living in hostile racial and social factions. We'd be fearful all the time. Our minds would be consumed by the desire for survival, and there would be no room for the pursuit of happiness.

On a relevant note, here was the Oct. 8 NYT Quotation of the Day:

''I can't go outside, I can't go to college. If I'm killed, it doesn't even matter because I'm dead right now.''

NOOR, a 19-year-old Baghdad resident.

How to go from good to sublime

This morning, I made myself a ham-and-egg croissant sandwich. Then I added a really thin slice of red onion, and that turned my modest little sandwich - the likes of which you could find somewhere as mundane as Jack in the Box - into something really special.

This works for other foods as well:

fish & chips = good
fish & chips + malt vinegar = sublime

breakfast cereal = good
breakfast cereal + a handful of fresh blueberries = sublime

Buffalo wings = good
Buffalo wings + blue cheese dressing = sublime

pizza = good
pizza + a sprinkling of hot pepper flakes = sublime

pho noodles = good
pho noodles + fresh basil leaves & bean sprouts = sublime

ceviche = good
ceviche on a fried plantain crisp = sublime

potato & leek soup = good
potato & leek soup + a dollop of sour cream = sublime

2 h 20 m 52 s

Random thoughts from my first half-marathon, in which I finished 246th out of 522 in my category, women aged 25 to 29. (Ah, the sweet taste of being ever-so-slightly above average)

• Why do people bring fleeces to an early morning run? And why do they think it's a good idea to shed them in a pile at the starting line for people to trip over?
• Good thing Maneesha (running mentor) is carrying those white-and-blue balloons, or our group would definitely get swallowed up by the crowd.
• Those three statuesque blonde girls, I want to beat them to the finish.
• When the seconds are ticking away, somehow it doesn't matter that there's no toilet paper in the portable toilet. Unless you need to poo (like the girl next to me), in which case even a discarded Solo cup starts to look like an acceptable substitute for TP.
• It's the last mile, and all I can think of is how much I would like to eat a banana.

Momma & philo

My mom is great. Earlier this summer, it occurred to me that it would be nice to learn more about Western philosophy. If I had finished my schooling in France, I would've certainly had a better foundation in it. As it is, I really have none. In French high schools, kids have to take"philo" (fee-lo) and pass an exit exam to receive their diploma. It makes for more a well-rounded education, definitely. Just listen to a "man on the street" interview in France versus, well, the US.

My mom knew of my interest, and recently forwarded me a little tool to help me on my quest. It's from a book called Une Semaine de Philosophie: 7 questions pour entrer en philosophie. (A Week of Philosophy: 7 questions to get into philosophy, by Charles Pépin)

This approach of taking on some simple questions and turning them over in your mind, one by one, appeals to me. Maybe others will find it useful too. I'm hoping to revisit these topics in future entries.

Lundi: Réfléchir peut-il nous rendre heureux?
Monday: Can thinking make us happy?

Mardi: Faut-il respecter les lois?
Tuesday: Should laws be respected?

Mercredi: Pourquoi la beauté nous fascine-t-elle?
Wednesday: What is so fascinating about beauty?

Jeudi: Qu'apprend-on vraiment a l'école?
Thursday: What do we really learn in school?

Vendredi: Faut-il croire en Dieu?
Friday: Should we believe in God?

Samedi: La démocratie est-elle le meilleur régime politique?
Saturday: Is democracy the best form of government?

Dimanche: Comment se préparer a mourir?
Sunday: How do we prepare ourselves to die?

Evelyn: A story

Evelyn is a 26-year-old Mexican American woman who works behind the counter at a grab-and-go cafe and is popular with customers. She has a youthful glow (even if she sometimes looks a bit worn), a sweet nature, and long brown hair with blond highlights.

She's been working there for a few years, the latest in a series of jobs since she dropped out of high school at age 15. That was when she became pregnant by her boyfriend, Joe, an 18-year-old friend of her brother. They had been seeing each other for about a year.

Evelyn's daughter, Carla, is a spunky girl of 10 who gets into some degree of trouble at school. They live with Evelyn's parents, and Joe does not contribute to the child's rearing.

But to back up. Evelyn was 14 when her relationship with Joe began. When they found out she was pregnant, he told her he would stick with her. By the time she was pretty far along, though, he discovered he had fallen out of love. Evelyn had been hiding her swelling belly from her parents, who were busy planning her quinceanera, and she begged Joe to come clean to them. She recalls him saying: "Don't call me no more, Evelyn. I don't love you."

Eventually, she could not wait any longer and told them herself. Her mother, she recalls, went to speak to the boy. But Evelyn's father could not bring himself to do it. He said he did not want to hear Joe throw in his face the fact that Evelyn had wanted it too.

So Evelyn left school, gave birth to her baby, and entered the hourly workforce. She worked hard, but was fired from a few places, one of them a clothing factory, due to tardiness. A few minutes here and there, nothing outrageous. But at some workplaces, there is little tolerance for that kind of thing.

These days, in between handling the lunch rush and giving the cafe a wipe-down before closing up, Evelyn thinks about going to cosmetology school. She turns down offers to become an assistant manager at the cafe - even though it would pay more - because she still sees this job as temporary, something to tide her over.

But cosmetology, now, that would lead to a better living and enable her to move into her own place. To make it work, she would need to find a program that would allow her to carry a full-time job and take Carla, whom she calls her "baby," to an after-school activity once a week. And before she could even apply to school, she would need to get her GED.

There's bitterness, of course. But it's mixed in with other feelings. "He was young, too," Evelyn says of her child's father. Still, she can't help but criticize her brother for being disloyal and hanging out with Joe still, even after everything.

Sometimes her brother gets mad at Joe too. But the two young men usually fall back into their easy friendship. They just get along well, Evelyn says.

George W. makes me irrational

I can blame no one but myself for volunteering to drop off food for a UCLA event this evening after work. But I can and do blame our fair president for causing the road closures that made me behave like a complete loon on the drive home. By way of background, here is the traffic warning we received via e-mail:

UPDATE: Closure of Sunset and Sepulveda Boulevards. Transportation Services request notification to campus users that a very important dignitary will be visiting the West LA area. This visit is expected to result in significant traffic congestion throughout the area. Expect considerable delays and plan accordingly.

The distance I needed to cover to get out of Westwood and on my merry way home was no more than a quarter-mile as the crow flies. It took me nearly an hour. Here is a depiction of the rather disastrous journey:

The blue Ws represent the roads shut down for our dignified visitor, and the straight black arrow the route I probably should have taken. Now imagine all of the major arteries in the area (including the straight-shot down Westwood Blvd.) viciously clogged with red tailights going nowhere. At 8 pm, when we all should have been at home with dinner in our bellies.

The absurdly convoluted path (marked in red) was the route that made sense to me at the time, if you factor in things like feeling quite certain that this or that side street will lead you to the promised land, or in any case being unwilling to just sit in a barely-moving line of cars and breathe in the next car's emissions.

Deconstructing a chicken

Lest anyone think that all I do is think about food: Today was the first day of school and instead of fleeing as soon as I was sprung from my last class, I went to the library (!) and checked out (!!) an accounting textbook that I haven't yet bought and sat down to read a chapter.

But back to the subject of this entry. After school, I stopped by the market and picked up a rotisserie chicken, which is a great secret of the home cook. There are so many uses for it, down to the bones. Here's what I usually do:

1) Upon getting the chicken home, tear off a drumstick and eat it.

2) For dinner, eat a thigh, a wing, and maybe one of the little nuggets behind each of the shoulderblades (the most tender part of a chicken). Potatoes or rice on the side, and some veggies. Store the rest of the chicken in the fridge.

3) For lunch the next day, cut slices from one of the chicken breasts and make a sandwich. Cucumbers and mayo are what I usually have on hand for toppings.

4) For dinner, have another drumstick, thigh and wing. Strip off remaining breast and dark meat and set aside in the fridge. The stripping-down is the most fun part (you should see me after Thanksgiving dinner), because I get to eat yummy bits in the process.

5) Make broth out of the carcass, by placing the bones in cold water and bringing to a simmer. For an Asian broth, I add a couple of ginger slices and rough-chopped scallions. For Western flavor, I add some cut-up onion, celery, a little bit of carrot, and some herbs if I have them. I don't bother salting until I'm going to use the broth.

6) Take the broth and make soup, such as noodle soup - or if I'm feeling creative - tortilla soup!

7) As for the remaining meat, I may freeze it if I'm getting tired of chicken by this time. Or I use it over the next day or two in various ways: Make more sandwiches. Toss pieces in a salad. Tear into smaller strips and combine with cooked noodles, shredded cucumbers and sprouts, seasoned with a sesame sauce.