On a St. Valentine's Day I decided to make a chocolate cake for my dear husband because unlike me he is a chocolate soul ^^; I chose very interesting and not very difficult to prepare cake and as it turned out later just gorgeous to taste! So we are recommending to try it to everybody with no exception!
This recipe requires a springform pan at least 3 inches high. It is imperative that each layer is made in sequential order. For best results, chill the mixer bowl before whipping the heavy cream. Also there were recommendations of what chocolate brand is better to use. I did as recommended: Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar for the base and middle layers and Guittard Choc-Au-Lait White Chips for the top layer. The entire cake can be made through step 8 and refrigerated up to a day in advance; leave it out at room temperature for up to 45 minutes before releasing it from the cake pan and serving.
So, today in the menu we have:

Triple-Chocolate Mousse Cake

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For some time already I was watching the netbook craze and not getting what's it all about. The cheap models were too small and underpowered to be useful, the not cheap models were ... well, not cheap and so you could buy a real laptop for the same price with much more juicy stats. Battery life sucked as well unless you would splurge on a big battery weighting more than the netbook itself.

The application did seem clear as well. Reading email and some super-light web-browsing could be achieved on a decent cell phone (like iPhone). The screen is too small to watch videos most of the time too.

Preparing for a trip to Beijing I found out one application that would be suitable for a netbook, though. Getting some remote-capture/control for video-dslr is much more suitable with small netbook that is easy to haul around. Also Ksusha voiced her opinion that for certain "entire day trips" it might be useful to bring some sort of a computer with us to copy pictures from full flash cards and to quickly inspect pictures in more details.

Also as time flied by the specs went up and the prices inched down and finally last week I saw a compelling case with Dell Mini 10v at Dell outlet, discounted by 20% with free shipping. The total was anywhere in between $180 to $300 (final price with TN tax) with different colors (+$20 for non-black colors) and specs and they were going fast.

The price was finally about right (heck, even cheaper than my voice recorder!) and Ksusha indicated that pink-shelled one might be a good idea and I agreed.

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For a few days already I'm making delicious Panini for breakfast! Thanks to the February 2010 issue of Williams-Sonoma magazine where I had found this recipe. We really liked it so the recipe will now be a permanent entry in our cookbook. So we are recommending it!
Panini is a sandwich (originally Italian, but now international ). In the Italian language panini is plural form of the word panino (diminutive form of pane "bread") which translates as "small bread roll". But to be completely exact in Italy this sandwich is called panino imbottito (literally "stuffed panino").
So, today in the menu we have:

Chicken Parmesan Panini

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As happens for the past couple of years, I spent a week in Beijing again for some Lustre team meetings.

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Another kind of late post about a past trip. Hopefully It'll be the last one and the rest would appear much sooner after the trip or perhaps even in almost real time?

So in September 2009 right after our Hawaiian vacation I was asked to come help Cray with some matters and spend two weeks at their facility in Mendota Heights which is a small town near Minneapolis in Minnesota. This entry won't touch any of the Cray bussines, though. It'll concentrate on various things we saw in the area.

First thing we noticed was significantly higher amount of wandering Canadian geese often crossing street at random.

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There are two dishes named "Sweet and Sour Pork" in China and both of these dishes are from the Cantonese cuisine.
First relates to takeout food and is called 糖醋里脊 - tang cu li ji - translates as "Sweet and Sour Meat" and it looks like this. Usually it is chunks of roasted pork in thick batter covered with a gluey and sickening sweet and sour sauce. But when this dish is well made the chunks are crispy outside and tender inside topped with a well-balanced sweet and sour sauce.
The second dish is called 古老肉 - gu lao rou - translated as "Old Meat" but later it started to be known as Sweet and Sour Pork. Today I will share with you the "Old Meat" recipe. I like it very much
I would like to highlight that if you ask for Sweet and Sour Pork in China you will most likely get the first dish. If you need the "Old Meat" version then you need to tell them gu lao rou or show a piece of paper with the sign that is more certain.
So, today in the menu we have:

"Sweet and Sour Pork or Old Meat"


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One thing we have not done yet from our plans on Hawaii until the last day was the swimming with dolphins. Ksusha wanted to try this a lot and so we purchased our tickets to "Dolphin royal swim" at Sea Life Park. The description was pretty bright, you get 2 dolphins to play with for 20 minutes or so for a hefty price.

As it always happens the reality turned out to be much bleaker. A group of 6 was formed (I guess if they had more paying customers, they'd form even bigger groups as evidenced by a  cheaper dolphin swim with only one dolphin that had absolutely enormous group) and then everybody waits for their turn to perform a trick with the dolphins. There were 6 total tricks, total time spent directly interacting with dolphins - less than 5 minutes per person.

First is a kiss and a hug, everybody stands in line to get their kiss from one of the dolphins and then to try and lift it a bit while Sea Life Park photographer makes pictures from the water from the best point (of course they will sell the photos to you later at a big premium).

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Today I would like to share with you our most favorite salad with crab sticks. I saw it 5 years ago in the restaurant "Chistiye prudi" in Simferopol. In our opinion this is the best salad with crab sticks that we have ever tasted! And since then this salad is always present on our family table. Usually everyone who tried it asks for a recipe.
But I would like to highlight: I tried American and Japanese mayonnaise and if you want to get the right taste of this salad you need only Russian mayonnaise and no others!
So, today in the menu we have:

"The best salad with crab sticks"

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On our day 7 we decided that we'd climb the Diamond Head crater. The climb itself is not very hard, but included steep stairs and all advices we've seen recommend going there in the early morning before the sun is full up so that you are not fried on the way (they also recommend a hat, comfortable shoes and plenty of water).

The Diamond Head itself is a crater of a long extinct volcano that believed to have exploded over 100,000 years ago (others put it at 300,000 years). The crater area covers 350 acres and it's width is greater than height. The crater has spherical form and the south-west rim is the highest. It is currently the signature landmark of Oahu due to its shape visible from far away (As you probably have seen on my earlier pictures). Hawaiian people named the crater Lēʻahi after the tuna fish forehead that it resembles.

In 1904 the crater was purchased by US government as ideal place for coastal defenses of Oahu (due to it's great panoramic view of the surrounding ocean). Fortifications began in 1908 and total of 5 batteries were built along with fire control station (to direct artillery fire) at the summit. In the end no artillery was ever fired during the war, though.

So we woke up at 5:30am and headed to the parking lot. Diamond head tunnel opens for tourist traffic at 6am. Here is a view from our hotel room from around 5:30am

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Today I want to introduce you to a very popular Japanese dish which we like very much and make often. This Japanese dish is called Gyūdon (牛丼) translated as "beef bowl". Gyūdon consists of a bowl of rice topped with beef and onion simmered in a mildly sweet sauce flavored with dashi (fish and seaweed stock), soy sauce and mirin (sweet rice wine). It is very tasty! Well, let's start.
So, today in the menu we have:

Gyūdon

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