I'm Jihan. I like 
Took a walk around the Bay Trail today, starting at Shoreline and going into the Palo Alto Baylands. Lots of birds: flocks of huge white birds, smaller ones that walk around on long spindly legs and poke their bills into the water, ducks and geese, tiny brown birds in the brush, even some kind of hawk-like thing.
Three things I like about this place: (1) watching birds, especially when they take off in a flock; (2) being close to the water and the big round sky; (3) hearing nature sounds.
(Only had a cell phone camera so not the most high-qual photos in the world.)
A gallery of tiny and giant things I have encountered recently.
I’ve recently taken up geocaching. One of today’s searches took us to a bizarre preserve with this land before time swamp thing. It had black tube pipes and some metal cages sticking out of the water. To get here we had to walk on a narrow ridge that didn’t seem like a legitimate path at first. We didn’t actually have to go very far into the woods, but after a couple of easy finds on relatively tame and well-maintained trails, this place (minutes away from uber-suburbia!) made me nervous.
Food update:
- Chocolate-chip cookies from scratch: tasty, sweet but substantial, lots of butter. If I’m going to cook something time-intensive I generally go for savory/salty over sweet, so this was a first attempt at baking a dessert that didn’t come from a pre-made mix. Definitely an upgrade over store-bought cookies (see: photo).
- Lentil soup with spinach: pretty good, a little bland. Soup is the best way to eat carrots and celery; I think there is too much weird flavor when they are raw. This recipe needs more flavor though. Maybe the optional smoked pork or ham provides that.
- “Pucker Powder”: a 34” tube of flavored sugar (horrifying website, by the way). So far, sour white (why not green?) apple, pink lemonade, and sweet root beer are good. Guava and kiwi are disgusting. Bubblegum tastes like Juicy Fruit or something, which I also find gross.
- Chocolate-covered bacon: Someone at work made this for a party. Tastes exactly like it sounds but still manages to be unexpected.
- Ferry Plaza Farmers Market: busy, lots of plums/peaches/nectarines and veggibles. Recommend peanut brittle and Indian food for the free samples in addition to all of the fruits. Picked up some Acme bread. It’s good, but I haven’t developed a taste for high-qual bread; they’re all about equally delicious to me.
Tune in next time for lentil tacos and something with quinoa. Also I will try to update gradually. Massive text-dumps are not very tumblr-like, I know.
