Travel Tips for Infrequent Travelers

Posted on November 15, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

So, yeah, my Person of Interest DVDs arrived, and with the combo pack, there are too many ways to watch, so I’m late again.  When I’m at home, I watch the blu-ray discs on my big tv, and when I’m traveling, I stream on Flixster from my Ultraviolet account.  Plus, I’m saving November’s episodes from this season on my DVR so I can see the “three-episode event that changes everything” all at once with no nail-biting.  I understand and accept how pathetic this makes me look.

Earlier this week, I went to DC to the offices of a former employer for whom I’m doing some contract work, and the trip was an exercise in rookie travel for me.  I have great sympathy for people who can only travel infrequently and don’t have status with an airline or have their airport routines down.  Holy moly.  Just a series of smack-my-forehead, dumb things happened.

First, we couldn’t schedule the meetings in time to allow for non-stop flights both ways to be affordable.  I ended up having to take US Airways from DFW to Dulles with a connection in Charlotte and United on the way back.  My flight left DFW at 10:20, which Continue reading →

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Compliments?

Posted on November 11, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

After weeks of working out schedules, my friend Diane (who told me about code switching) and I caught up last week over Skype.  (As an aside, I’m not sure we sufficiently appreciate the magic of Skype, which 20 years ago was the realm of science fiction.)  We chatted about a wide range of issues, because she is a true-hearted smartie who elevates our conversations, but something happened that got me to thinking.  I complimented her on how great her arms look, and she responded with an extended explanation of how I saw them at their best possible angle and that normally, they don’t look that good.  Because we were on magical Skype, all I had to do was give her a look and say, “Di-aaaane.  Your arms look really goo-oood,” and she responded with a bashful, “Thank you.”

Since that conversation I’ve been thinking about compliments.  Despite the ribbing, I receive compliments the way that Diane did, which is to say that I respond to compliments with deflection.  I was all ready to write today about the need to be less suspicious about compliments, and then I made the mistake of checking my OK Cupid account.  Here’s half of what Continue reading →

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Tardy Posts – I’m Obsessed

Posted on November 8, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

I don’t have any good excuses for why my past two Thursday posts have come out on Friday.  The truth of the matter is that I’m spending every free minute I have watching old episodes of Person of Interest.  Have you seen this show?  It’s in its third season, and it’s about an artificial intelligence called “the Machine” that uses all the information in the world to predict when acts of terrorism or crimes are about to be committed.  The Machine was created by a reclusive billionaire at the request of the U.S. government, which is only interested in the acts of terrorism.  The billionaire has arranged it so that he gets notified of the crimes, which the government considers “non-relevant” and ignores.  The billionaire works with a partner, an ex-CIA/Special Forces badass, to stop the crimes from happening.  All the Machine sends them is a social security number, and they have to figure out whether the person of interest is a future victim or future perpetrator.

I watched a few episodes in the first season because the premise was interesting and timely, with the news that various internet companies were doing borderline things with the information they harvest from Continue reading →

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Cold Brew Coffee: the Last Post

Posted on November 4, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

I know, I know – this is my THIRD POST on cold brew (I wrote about it here and here), but I promise it will be my last. Future cold brew information will be shared as a drib or a drab. But after several weeks of spotty traveling during the week and on the weekends, I’ve hit a lull where I’m home for two solid weeks, which means there’s time to make and drink cold brew. Before this, I’d only been home for a few days at a time, so I drank Nespresso. I love Nespresso, but the temperatures haven’t dropped enough to make me happy to be drinking hot lattes. And I was too lazy to make a special trip to Trader Joe’s to pick up their cold brew (which I’ve been informed Susan, not Katy, originally told me to buy). Now that I’m home for a good stretch, I have the will to go to TJ, but Ingrid sent me some amazingly delicious Kona from Hawaii a while back; I used half to make a batch of cold brew and stashed the rest in the freezer. Coffee won’t last forever in the freezer, so the stars aligned for me to make cold brew again.

Since the Continue reading →

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Hotel Wish List

Posted on November 1, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

Earlier this week, a friend of mine posted a link to an article the Points Guy wrote about things he’d like to see in more hotel rooms.  It’s a good start, but I have a few additional requests.

Electrical outlets
The Points Guy asks for more electrical outlets in the room, citing the increase in personal electronic gadgets all of us carry.  When I travel for work, I have a laptop, at least one Kindle, and my mobile phone with me.  I don’t mind having them scattered around the room charging, but I would like hotels to leave me at least one outlet free near the nightstand.  I use the alarm clock function on my phone to wake me in the morning.  Wakeup calls from the hotel are unreliable, and the alarm clock in the room requires too much effort.  Who has time to fuss with a foreign alarm clock trying to figure out how to correct the time, set the alarm, and find an appropriate radio station?  Definitely not me, and starting the day with the klaxon on the alarm ensures that I will be crabbier than usual for the rest of the morning.

No rainfall showerhead
If I’m Continue reading →

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More Lazy Foodie Contradiction “Recipes”

Posted on October 28, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

In my last post, I promised “recipes” for chili, nachos, Sazeracs, and toddies.  I realize that there are thousands of recipes for each of these things (except maybe the nachos), all with precise, measured amounts.  And I love trying new recipes on the weekend, following the instructions precisely the first couple of times before I start messing with it.  But the lazy side of me rules during the week when I can’t face the thought of having to do more than load the dishwasher, and my measuring implements are all either handwash only or don’t fit right into the racks.

I learned the chili from Maria.  I visited her in Boston, where I stepped off the plane starving – my flight landed two hours late, but United delayed it 15 minutes at a time, which wasn’t enough time to wander off and get some food.  Maria picked me up, we stopped for ten minutes at a grocery store where she threw vegetables and cans into our cart with unprecedented speed, and then we got to her house where she chopped everything up, tossed it into a pot, and had vegetarian chili on the table in 30 minutes.  Impressive and delicious.

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Lazy Foodie Contradiction “Recipes”

Posted on October 24, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

I realized on my drive home from dinner last night that I lead a life of contradictions.  For instance, I’ve mentioned before that I’m happy to chop 20 different vegetables into quarter-inch dice for minestrone, but I refuse to mix cocktails, even though I love cocktails.  I will refuse to eat the same kind of food (Thai, Italian, sushi, etc.) for consecutive dinners if I eat out at restaurants, but at home, my tolerance skyrockets.  Also, I am too lazy to cook something different for just me for each meal, and circumstances have removed cereal and popcorn from my meal repertoire.  What this all adds up to is that there are only a few things that I’ll make for myself at home, and if I can make that thing in a larger batch with minimal additional effort, then it’s worth eating the same thing for dinner (or even lunch and dinner) for a couple or several days in a row.

I own roughly 50 cookbooks, and I subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated, both in print and online.  I also have access to the internet.  Despite all this, I find that the dishes that I make for myself most frequently, I learned

Continue reading →

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TwtV: Toronto: Food, Cocktails, and Wine

Posted on October 22, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

Loraine and I went to Toronto this past weekend to visit our friend, Marco, whom we met and got to know in Italy when he got recruited to spend ten hours on a Friday driving us to far-apart wineries in Tuscany.  When Marco announced that he was moving to Toronto from Arezzo, we knew that we’d be visiting him in Canada as soon as possible.

Piola

Our first stop in Toronto was to Piola (1165 Queen St W, +1.416.477.4652), the restaurant that Marco manages.  Loraine ordered the caprese salad and a pizza with red sauce, mozzarella, something else I can’t remember, and prosciutto crudo.  I ordered the beet salad and a white pizza with caramelized onions, mozzarella, and prosciutto crudo.  We also split two bottles of Italian red wine (one bottle more than we should have) and the profiteroles.  I scarfed all that food down like I was starving.  If you’re looking for a low-key, casual, delicious dinner of pizza or pasta, you should head to Piola.  They make the dough fresh in house, and you can watch them pressing the dough balls into the base for your pizza.  Piola also offers all-you-can-eat homemade gnocchi on the 29th of every Continue reading →

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Charlotte Cooper’s Galt Cave

Posted on October 17, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

When I finally get fed up with the misogyny and misandry and general divisiveness that’s taking over the world, and every day, that moment creeps ever closer, I’m going to build my own version of Galt’s Gulch (I call it the Galt Cave) and spirit away all the smart women so they can think and create without having to worry about the Man keeping them down.  Here’s my to-do list to make this happen.  If you have additional suggestions, please let me know in the comments:

  • Find a location.  We want something unassuming and quiet.  In the event that someone stumbles upon it, we don’t want them to think anything is amiss.  Also, it would be great if there were natural features in case we need to defend against military aggression.  Yes, I’m anticipating military aggression – are you aware of history?
  • Identify women who can build the infrastructure we’ll need to stay in contact with each other and have access to information but also stay off the NSA’s grid.  I think this means we’re going to have to find senior women at the NSA who think what their agency is overreaching bullshit.  We’ll need their advice on how best to Continue reading →
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Rewiring Marshmallow Chickens

Posted on October 14, 2013 by travelfoodandlife

When I first started working with my miraculous, executive coach, one of the exercises she made me do was to think about what my dream job would be like and catalog every detail.  The idea is that you can’t do the work to bring about the transformation that you’re looking for if you don’t know what the goal looks like.  If you don’t have a specific end in mind, you’ll make changes for the sake of making changes, spinning your wheels without progressing to what will make you whole.

It sounds easy, but it took me over a year of working with her to be able to do it, and even then, I didn’t get it 100% right.  She asked me to do the same thing with respect to finding the right man, and I’ve been struggling with that, too.  It’s easy-peasy to make a list of characteristics:  smart, good at banter, loves to travel, likes cocktails, thinks my chocolate chip cookies are the best, etc. Once you start down this road, the characteristics evolve from the sublime to the ridiculous:  no excessive pen snobbery, no Yankees fans, no Red Sox fans, no AL fans at all because the designated hitter is Continue reading →

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