First pizza on the pellet grill
Turned out very nice pic.twitter.com/1mHC00hIem
— waffletchnlgy đźš´ (@waffletchnlgy) October 25, 2020
The nomads of North San Jose
Our neighborhood is a quiet suburban neighborhood in North San Jose. The population is mostly Asian. A lot of people here are blue collar. Just like us, the new neighbors who moved in the past decade are mostly professionals working for one of the Silicon Valley tech companies. It is also why the average house price soared to above $1 million. For Silicon Valley that is still cheap.
People mind their own business here. There isn’t a strong sense of community. There is no yearly block party, or Saturday get togethers in the street. This is why our neighborhood has been an ideal place to blend in and park in our streets almost unnoticed. Unless of course, you show up pulling a camper or in a mobile home. We have plenty of space to park along the large avenues, or along fences near the corner of a street. Folks will show up and live there for a few days. These nomads move their vehicles every 72 hours. A week later they will rotate again into the same spot, never truly leaving the larger neighborhood.
These mobile homes are different from the ones you find near large construction sites, Halloween pumpkin patches or at the back parking lot of Nasa Ames in Mountain View. Those are seasonal workers, craftsmen and contractors from all over the Western United States. I’ve heard about woodworkers who will come from Idaho or Montana to build sheds for Tuft Sheds in the Spring, or about volunteer fire fighters who will help California in the fall to fight the dangerous wildfires. Some even form a private fire department for certain winemakers.
The nomads in our neighborhood are different. They are living some of the hardest lives of Silicon Valley. I don’t know what they do for a living. Some of them collect iron. I see others work continuously on cars, along the side of streets. The wide boulevards of your neighborhood or a perfect place to blend in without causing too much trouble for neighbors. Sometimes it just looks like a nice mobile home is parked there. Other times, it is not as pleasant with plenty of old iron spread out around a trailer, with trash in the gutter, and even sewage. Most of these set ups do not have running water obviously.
As long as you are courteous to the neighborhood, I am not bothered much by them. Life must be very rough for the nomads of Silicon Valley.
The longest day
Yesterday, I completed one of my longest driving days: San Jose to San Diego and back in one day. 915 miles, in 14 hours at an average speed of 66mph.
One Day Round Trip to San Diego
I left shortly before 5am on Highway 101 South. The hardest part of the entire drive is the 152 connector from Highway 101 to Interstate 5. It is a two way rolling road with big trucks and where people drive at high speeds. After about 65 minutes, I reached Interstate 5.
At about 2-2.5 hours I passed the Kettleman City’s pitstop. This is another landmark for those driving through the boring Central Valley. Kettleman is a small place with a few gas stations and restaurants, including an In and Out burger.
Overall the Central Valley passed quickly. It was covered in an eerie fog or smoke from the California wildfires. I made good progress and arrived after 3.5 hours at the foot of the Grapevine. It was time to fill up the tank and do some stretches.
San Jose to San Diego
I didn’t need any food or drinks as I had packed a nice cooler with Red Bull, Haribo, healthy bars, peanuts and a breakfast sandwich. I was ready to keep on going.
The Grapevine, the Valley, Downtown Los Angeles and Orange County passed quickly under my wheels. I hit a bit of traffic near Camp Pendleton, just before I exited on to Highway 76 to switch to Interstate 15. Almost exactly 7 hours later, I arrived at my destination.
After a nice lunch, three and a half hours later, we were back on the road back home. This time I had a co-pilot who helped me for a few hours through the Central Valley at night. This time we did stop at Kettleman City at the In and Out for a cheese burger and animal style fries. A little before 11pm, we arrived exhausted back home in San Jose.
The drive back from Palm Springs was a long drive back home. The round trip to empty the dorm in Los Angeles was a monster trip. This one-day trip beat them all: 14 hours of driving in one day.
Fish Grill
This weekend, I started learning the fine art of grilling fish. Grilling fish is a lot less forgiving I suspect than a big piece of meat. I’ve tasted rubbery cod or dry grilled salmon. I knew this may take a few attempts.
On the menu:
- Salmon filets - I let it sit overnight in a bed of brown sugar (1/2 cup), and coarse salt (1/4 cup). In hindsight, it was too much salt.
- Mackerel - I bought them frozen and salted. In the morning, I marinated them in dijon mustard, lime and coarse pepper.
- Large Shrimps, marinated in Gochujang red pepper paste, garlic, cumin, cayenne and lime.
Fish Grill
I smoked the fish and shrimps at 180F, high smoke for 2-3 hours until the internal temperature of the salmon was about 145F.
The food came up excellent (except for a little too much salt on the outside of the salmon).
The Truth about Alcohol
Tonight I watched a British documentary about alcohol on Netflix. If you are like me and enjoy a glass of beer, wine or spirits, I recommend it. It actually may alter my behavior from now on.
Watching the documentary while sipping Elijah Craig bourbon
The catalyst for the 2016 documentary was a change in the UK guideline on the amount of alcohol deemed without a lot of risk. The amount was lowered to be 14 units per week, spread over a couple of days, irrespective if you are a man or a women. A glass of whisky is 1 unit, a large glass of red wine is 3 units. A regular glass of wine or a pint of peer count towards 2 units. As the host of the documentary experienced during a test, 14 units is not a lot. He actually drank 28 units during a “normal” week.
The documentary doesn’t unearth anything really earth shattering, yet it does show experimentally the effects of alcohol. We tend to eat more when we drink (in addition to the calories from the alcohol). We are horrible at multi-tasking, and loose our inhibitions, or simple abilities to stop. Deep sleep disappears. We also learn that lining your stomach is a good idea and that red wine is better. However, you can get the same goodness out of many other food, like walnuts and chocolate.
As this was a British documentary, I am inspired now to switch to tea for a few weeks.
The best Tour de France in years
I watched perhaps 40 minutes cumulative of this year’s Tour de France live. And yet, I didn’t miss a single bit of the action. And what an action packed Tour de France this has been. My daily routine was a quick check-in with a summary of the tour on YouTube, and listening to The Move podcast, with Lance and George. It was riveting day after day.
I also finished in the top 25% of Sporza’s fantasy Tourmanager, as I had selected Pogacar, Roglic and Van Aert in my team. Not too shabby, since over 60,000 cycling fanatics were taking part.
But wait! There is more. The classics are around the corner. And this weekend is the world championships in Imola. Wout Van Aert got silver yesterday in the time trial, and is ready for Sunday. Team Wout!
The shot of the day is that of Anne Van der Breggen who won the double for the women. Glamourshot!
Sick shot. #Imola2020 pic.twitter.com/UQeLwVcPkX
— La Flamme Rouge (@laflammerouge16) September 26, 2020
My first brisket
After cooking chicken, sausages and ribs in the past months, I was ready for my first brisket. I was extra motivated, after taking Aaron Franklin’s masterclass on Texas style bbq, and admiring plenty of briskets in the Camp Chef Facebook group.
I got an untrimmed 14.5 lbs choice brisket and drafted a game plan for the next day. I followed the plan almost to the letter:
- 4am: trim the brisket. This was a lot harder than I thought. My piece of meat looked much different from those I saw in the trimming videos. I left sufficient fat to “protect” the meat from drying out.
- 4:45am: season the brisket. I didn’t use any lather, and did a 50/50 kosher salt/pepper mix - central Texas style. I was conservative in applying it. Next, let it rest at room temperature for 30-40 minutes
- I started the pellet grill/smoker at 5:40am, 250F and smoke level 8.
- The meat went on the grill at 6am, accompanied by a water pan.
- I started spritzing with apple cider vinegar every hour to avoid the edging from drying out.
- Near hour 6, I increased the heat to 265F to be ready for the infamous stall. I didn’t really notice the temperature stall.
- At hour 8, I wrapped it in butcher paper and let it smoke another 4 hours. I did notice that the internal temperature went closer to 210F, which was higher than I was aiming for (198-203F). I kept lowering the grill temperature to eventually 220F in the hope to bring down the internal temperature a bit. Though it really didn’t come down much at all. Regardless, the meet turned out to be juicy enough.
I am pretty happy with my first brisket. It had a nice bark and the point was very juicy. Next time I was run the grill at a lower temperature.
Saturday morning
Go Run
Corona kilos are real. Just like the virus is very real. In recent weeks, I started the routine of jumping rope in the early morning, and to go walk and run in the evening. Between the walks and the short runs, I will be surpassing 20 miles this week. Those are mostly walking miles. My runs have been 2 to 3 mile runs. My half marathon race is now in the distant past. My wish is to be ready for another half marathon, when the pandemic is over.
Today it was time to start pushing again towards 4 miles runs. It has been tricky to get a run in, amid a busy work schedule and the large fluctuations in air quality due to the wild fires nearby. On a given day we start with an air quality index (AQI) of about 90, and on the worst days it will go past 200 by the afternoon.
It was good run.
4.1 Miles
Ghost 13
The only true running shoe I’ve owned are the Brooks Ghost model. I’ve ran over 450 miles in both the Ghost 10, and Ghost 11 versions. A few weeks ago, I bought a pair of Ghost 13. This version is truly the best: it is light, and the ankle support has gotten stiffer. It is fantastic stability shoe. 
Woop
When I go for a run, I plan how to keep my mind busy. Rarely do I run without listening to something or somebody. My mind is too active. Even when I listen to music, my mind wonders off thinking about this or that.
Today’s run included two podcasts: Lance Armstrong’s The Move podcast with a preview of the Tour de France 2020, and NPR’s Hidden Brain. I don’t find Shankar Vedantam’s voice a great radio voice. Yet, the content of Hidden Brain is amazing.
The episode about Goop marries the US can-do attitude, with European skepticism. It couldn’t hit home stronger.
Is there a methodical way to achieve your dreams? Turns out there is — and this scientific technique has an acronym: WOOP.
— Hidden Brain (@HiddenBrain) August 25, 2020
W - wish
O - outcome
O - obstacle
P - planhttps://t.co/tvN9S68kKq