The Woodsman

Babies

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:44:38 GMT

"Hey, you're hot and I feel great, lets get married."
"Alright, but I want lots of kids."
"Me too, five hundred of them. Ffffffff."
"Yeah... babies everywhere!"

Dinner with the Rabbi!

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 20:26:43 GMT

So I finally went and did it. I ate at the Rabbi's house. And it was delicious.

I went with George, Alex, and Greg. They were explaining to me all of the traditions of the Shabbos dinner, the singing, praying, giving thanks, ect. We got there at about 7:15, 15 mins late. They had just started the rituals when we got there. We were let in to the apartment by the Rabbi's wife Suri, who walked us to the apartment. When we got there, the Rabbi, Rabbi Shalom Garfinkle (the Rabbi's facebook: http://ucla.facebook.com/profile.php?id=2517012), got up and greeted us all. Besides the desma kids and I, there were 6 other students, the Rabbi, his wife Suri, and his 4 daughters. From there we did a lot of singing in hebrew that I can't very well pronounce, and then proceeded to eat our 4 course meal.

And goddamn, it was good.

We started off with lots of Suri's homemade challah, gefilte fish, taco salad, and this cabbage salad. I really liked the gefilte fish, and so does George and Greg, but Alex apparently can't stand it. The Rabbi says that people either like it or can't stand it. Then we all had this tasty onion and carrot soup with tiny square croutons from Israel that looked like mini chiclets.

I think about this time the Rabbi asked me some questions about myself, like where I was from, did I practice at home, ect. This is probably a good time to mention that I was pretending to be jewish this entire dinner. My curly hair helped me achieve this. He asked me where I was from, I said Oakland. He asked me what school I went to, I lied and said Oakland Tech. I wasn't about to tell him that I went to a catholic school, I mean cmon now. He asked me if I practiced at home, and I said I didn't because I'm half Jewish on my dad's side and that my parents are separated and I live with my mom. All of that was a lie except that I don't practice at home, cause I'm not jewish.

Then Suri brought out the main course, which was chicken, this weird pasta thing, yams, and potatoes. All of it was super delicious, except the yams which I didn't eat. Then we were talking about the Daily Show or something, and somehow we got on the subject of the ten commandments, and he challenged us to list them all. Surprisingly, we all did. Honestly, I can remember them all off the top of my head from Brother Kenneth's class, but I wasn't sure if some of the shit translated differently or something.

When we had finished the dinner, George and I were playing with the Rabbi's 4 daughters, when they bring out the desert. They had made blondies, a chocolate peanut butter cake, and the Rabbi's milkless ice cream. Apparently there's some rule about not having milk and meat in the same meal, so the Rabbi makes his own ice cream, and it's hella good.

After, we all left feelin' hella full, so we did what any college student would do, we ran down to the supermarket to pickup alcohol. We drank, and we smoked hookah, ect, ect. Basically what we do every day.

PS: I think the cactus is going to take longer to get here because they haven't even chopped it up yet. This company doesn't get very many orders, so the cactus isnt yet ready to be shipped. For this reason, they haven't yet charged me for it.

¿Que Pides Tu?

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:23:41 GMT

I never knew what Alex Ubago looked like, but now I know. A small child with bushy eyebrows and funny facial expressions. Also I dont think he actually plays guitar, either that or they did a really bad job of putting the sound and video in sync.

In other news, I have smoked entirely too much weed in the past two days. Really though, over the top. I need a break. And Salvia in the vaporizer was interesting. I cant really describe it well. I was already stupid high when we did it, but it was a really strange feeling. Not hallucinatory, but definitely introspective.

Drawing Class

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 21:36:26 GMT

Basically we're doing more of the same stuff for drawing, but more complicated and tedious. We're working with Maya, a 3d modeling program, to create a cube with 216 cubes with in that cube, with 216 planes bisecting those cubes at 45 or -45 degree angles.

Also this is the final version of what I put up before. It has opaque planes instead of transparent colored planes.

Cooking Class

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:30:32 GMT

Today is Chile's independence day. Well, sort of. Today was like the day when they declared independence and started fighting, except they fought first and independence was declared after they had already won. Anyway, last night we had a party with two complete strangers that my mother met in a safeway. I'm actually not joking about that, she actually knew next to nothing about them. The man, Tomás (a cashier at safeway), recognized the my mother was chilean from her accent. It turns out that my mother and Tomás are somewhat distant cousins. My grandfather (chilean grandfather) is Alberto Rioseco Velazques. His father is a Rioseco, his mother is a Velazques. Tomás' grandmother is also a Velazques, but the cousin of my mother's grandmother.

So Tomás and his Wife Susanna (who's grandmother is chilean) came for dinner, and we had a traditional chilean dinner of Pastel de Choclo and Pisco Sour.

The bottle on the left is the pisco. You can make pisco sour (a mixed drink) by putting one part lemon juice, three parts pisco (a chilean and peruvian grape brandy), and some sugar. The clay bowls are what you cook/eat the pastel out of, although you dont need to have the clay bowls.

The recipe for pastel de choclo is super loose.

Ingredients!
Onions (a lot)
Corn (a lot)
Basil
Cumin
Chicken
Sugar
Salt
Hard Boiled Eggs
Raisins
Black Olives
Butter (only if cooking in bowls)

First you have to make the pastel base. The base is a lot of corn and onion. You can make the base 1 to 1 on corn and onion or you can put more corn than onion. It doesnt really matter. As for how much to use it depends on how much you're making. Pastel doesnt rise or expand so eyeball it. Use large white onions and sweet corn. Put the onions through a food processor (or chop finely for hours), then put some oil in a pot and cook the onions.

You're going to want to do the same with the corn, except the corn obviously should be cut off the cob. Just add the corn to the onions.

Stir in basil and cumin. There's no correct amount to put in, just taste and judge whether it needs more.

Add salt. Obviously not too much, but again taste.

Add sugar if the corn isn't too sweet. It's kinda a sweet dish, but if the corn's good, then you dont need to add sugar.

Add raisins. You can put as many as you like. They kinda rehydrate while cooking and are very sweet and delicious.

Cook for about 40 minutes from when you put the onion and corn in.

At the same time as this is cooking you want to be cooking some chicken. We usually just do it in the frying pan.

Add cumin to the chicken.

When the chicken's ready, just set it aside.

Once the 40 minutes are up you need to add the chicken, pastel, olives, and egg.

• If you're cooking it in bowls, grease the sides of the bowls with butter so the pastel wont burn. put some pastel on the bottom, then put in a piece of chicken, a half of a hard boiled egg, a couple olives, then put some pastel on top. Do this for each bowl and then put it in the oven (at 350) and cook until the tops become golden. Then it's ready to eat.

• If you're not cooking it bowls, add the chicken, olives, and halves of hard boiled egg to the pastel in the pot and let it cook (stirring every once in awhile) until delicious (usually another 40 mins or so). Then serve and eat.

It's delicious trust me. We made more than this many pastel bowls. We made 15.