I woke up earlier than Kat and Peter this morning, so I came to the dining table and wasted a lot of time online looking at pictures and watching videos of evolutionarily fascinating, yet almost grotesque, creatures. Some, like the blobfish, were merely unattractive, others actually looked as if their functioning was compromised by their physical attributes, or their behaviors would be their demise during their very brief lives. The website is called "WTF, Evolution?" and it's a pretty entertaining read.
I brought tea to Peter, who still snoozed in bed. Am endlich (finally!), sah ich (I saw), dass die Zeit shon elf war (that the time was already eleven). I had RSPD'd us for lunch in Little Italy with a new Meetup group (new to me, it's been in existence for a couple months at this point). Since the weather canceled our diving and snorkeling plan, I'd looked again at possible activities for the day and had decided that lunch with a new group of new acquaintances would be fun, especially over lunch!
The three of us made up half of the entire party through most of lunch. The three women whom we met were Audrey Rose, the organizer and host, Virginia, and Cindy. They were all older women, probably at minimum in their early to mid-70's (from how they appeared to me, anyway). Kat sat between Peter and me on one long side of the table, Audrey Rose sat at my end, Virginia sat opposite me, and Cindy sat opposite Kat.
One woman joined us much later, after we'd already finished eating and were actually just about getting ready to be on our way. Her name was Christine, and she appeared to be by far the youngest because she appeared to be the most physically fit and active. She'd spent her early afternoon playing volleyball, and was just coming from that. She apologized for potentially smelling bad, but Peter, who was sitting kitty-corner to her right, didn't make mention of any offensive odor. She spends months out of the year in Argentina (she goes twice annually, she said, and will be going again in October or November and staying until next April). The restaurant we were in was an Argentinian restaurant. I think she said she'd never been to this restaurant before, which makes sense. If one is traveling to a foreign country, why waste one's taste buds on local presentations of the style of cuisine from that country when soon enough, one will get the authentic item?
After lunch, we crossed the street to a shop that sold cheeses, sausages, oils (mostly varieties of olive), and pastas. In addition, they sold Nutella, which Kat wanted me to buy, as the price was less than it would have been at a more typical supermarket, like Sprouts or Albertsons. Peter saw a colleague/friend of his and went to chat with him for a bit while Kat and I looked at a couple of flavored balsamic vinegars (fig- and raspberry-infused).
We continued our walk up India Street to the cafe on the corner where I'd been with Liz before. I don't remember the name of it, but it's not got a terribly large preparation/"kitchen" area, but did have many outdoor seats and several indoor seats. We read different parts of a newspaper, then decided to take a walk down toward the water, where there was supposedly a Scandinavian "stuff" store.
We walked into a shopping center called the Headquarters, where we found Venissimo Cheeses and tasted a few of their products. Peter bought one that tasted particularly good. We sat on the low wall between the walkway and the water, and observed some small crabs crawling among the riprap.
Slowly walking along the waterfront path, we passed through the small parklike area north of the County Services Building and finally reached the car (yes, I drove us down instead of taking the bus because the bus would have cost more and taken much, much longer to get from point to point).
By the time we'd stepped into our flat, it was already near seven o'clock. I looked in my scheduling/date book and saw that I'd planned, earlier, to take both Peter and Kat to see "Cowspiracy," which was being shown again by one of my environmental groups. Turns out that my friend, with whom I'd gone to see the movie initially, had purchased a copy and offered to burn me a copy if I had a blank DVD to use. I asked Peter if we could procure one by the sushi and bowling outing on Thursday, and he said yes.
So, soon I'll have a copy of the movie which I can share with more people, and Peter can form a better-informed judgment of the documentary.
In the meantime, I'm still baking and experimenting. Today, I massaged a recipe to include some ingredients that I've been itching to use since I bought them:
Banana Oatmeal Muffins
Ingredients:
2 medium bananas, mashed (about a cup or so of pulp)
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. A-P flour
1/4 c. coconut flour
1/2 c. rolled oats
1 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
3 T. vegetable oil
1 large egg
1/3 c. coconut milk
1/2 c. brown sugar, full but unpacked
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. almond extract
1/3 c. finely chopped dried apricots (I left these out by mistake - oops.)
1 T. rolled oats (optional - I left these out to make them pretty plain)
Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
In a large bowl, mix together the flours, rolled oats, baking powder, and salt.
In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the vegetable oil, egg, coconut milk, brown sugar, and extracts.
Pour liquid ingredients over the flour mixture and fold the liquid into the dry until mostly incorporated but still lumpy. Stir in mashed bananas.
[The moisture completely bakes into the dry ingredients without developing the gluten, giving the muffins a "cakier" texture.]
Divide into a 12 standard cupcake/muffin pan.
Bake for about 20 minutes, then add 3 minutes at a time if the muffins don't spring back when pressed lightly. [Ours were done baking in just over 20 minutes.]
Allow muffins to cool, in the pan on a cooling rack, for about five minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan and allow to cool completely on the rack.
These muffins come out wonderfully moist and flavorful.
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